
DANCE 





Class 



Book.. 







GopyrigMl 



CflPSRIGIIT DEPOSIT. 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 
FOR GIRLS 



OTHER VOCATIONAL 
GUIDANCE HOOKS 

J. Adams Puffer, Editor 

VOCA TIONA L G UIDA NCE 
—THE TEACHER AS A 
COUNSELOR 

By J. A dams Puffer 

A VOCA 110 X A L REA DER 

By C. Park Pressey 

VOCA TIONA L G UIDA NOP 

POP THE PPOPPSSIOXS 

By Edwin Tenney Brewster 



" Vocational guidance seeks the largest realiza- 
tion of the possibilities of every child and youth, 
measured in terms of worthy service" 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 



Camp Fire Girls 



The lessons of patriotism, kindness, and industry taught by the 
Camp Fire Girls' organization make it a power for good 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 
FOR GIRLS 



By 
MARGUERITE STOCKMAN DICKSON 

Author of "Front the Old World to the New," "A Hundred Years 

of Warfare. i68g-iy8g" "Stories of Camp and Trail" 

"Pioneers and Patriots in American History" 



RAND McNALLY & COMPANY 

Chicago New York 



Copyright, 191 9, by 
Rand McNally & Company 



t* 




ttEC 20 I9i9 




©CI.A5G1086 
I 






THE CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A Foreword ix 

PART I. PRESENT-DAY IDEALS OF WOMANHOOD 

CHAPTER 

I. Woman's Place in Society 3 

II. The Ideal Home 18 

III. Establishing a Home 27 

IV. Running the Domestic Machinery .... 49 

PART II. GUIDING GIRLS TOWARD THE IDEAL 
V. The Educational Agencies Involved . . .75 

VI. Training the Little Child 86 

VII. Teaching the Mechanics or Housekeeping . . 102 

VIII. The Girl's Inner Life 122 

IX. The Adolescent Girl 130 

X. The Girl's Work 151 

XI. The Girl's Work (Continued) — Classification 

of Occupations 163 

XII. The Girl's Work (Continued) — Vocations as 

Affecting Homemaking 194 

XIII. The Girl's Work (Continued) — Vocations Deter- 

mined by Training 203 

XIV. Marriage 218 

Suggested Readings 241 

The Index 243 

vii 



A LIST OF THE PORTRAITS 

PAGE 

Louisa M. Alcott . .221 

Ruth McEnery Stuart 223 

Louise Homer and Her Family 225 

Margaret Junkin Preston 227 

Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt with Members of Their 

Family . . . .229 

Julia Ward Howe and Her Granddaughter . .231 

Caroline Bartlett Crane 233 

Alice Freeman Palmer .235 

Amelia E. Barr 237 



A FOREWORD 

Fortunate are we to have from the pen of Mrs. 
Dickson a book on the vocational guidance of girls. 
Mrs. Dickson has the all-round life experiences which give 
her the kind of training needed for a broad and sympa- 
thetic approach to the delicate, intricate, and complex 
problems of woman's life in the swiftly changing social 
and industrial world. 

Mrs. Dickson was a teacher for seven years in the 
grades in the city of New York. She then became the 
partner of a superintendent of schools in the business of 
making a home. In these early homemaking years there 
came from the pen of Mrs. Dickson a series of historical 
books for the grades which have placed her among the 
leading educational writers of the country. During the 
long sickness of her husband she filled for a while two 
administrative positions — homemaker and superintendent 
of schools. 

Her three children are now in high school and are 
beginning to plan for their own life work. With the 
broad training of homemaker, wife, mother, teacher, 
writer, and administrator, Mrs. Dickson has the combi- 
nation of experiences to enable her to introduce teachers 
and mothers to the very difficult problems of planning 
wisely big life careers for our girls. 

The book is so plainly and guardedly written that it 
can also be used as a textbook for the girls themselves in 
connection with civic and vocational courses. The only 
difficulty with the book for a text is that it is so attrac- 
tively written on such vital problems that the student will 
not stop reading at the end of the lesson. 

J. Adams Puffer 

ix 



"Vocational guidance has for its ideal the 
granting to every individual of the chance to attain 
his highest efficiency under the best conditions it 
is humanly possible to provide" 



PART I 

PRESENT-DAY IDEALS OF 
WOMANHOOD 



"How to preserve to the individual his right to 
aspire, to make of himself what he will, and at the 
same time find himself early, accurately, and with 
certainty, is the problem of vocational guidance." 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 
FOR GIRLS 

CHAPTER I 
Woman's Place in Society 

ANY scheme of education must be built upon answers 
to two basic questions: first, What do we desire 
those being educated to become? second, How shall we 
proceed to make them into that which we desire them 
to be? 

In our answers to these questions, plans for education 
fall naturally into two great divisions. One concerns 
itself with ideals; the other, with methods. No matter 
how complex plans and theories may become, we may 
always reach back to these fundamental ideas: What 
do we want to make? How shall we make it? 

Applying this principle to the education of girls, we 
ask, first: What ought girls to be? And with this simple 
question we are plunged immediately into a vortex of 
differing opinions. 

Girls ought to be — or ought to be in the way of becom- 
ing — whatever the women of the next generation should 
be. So far all are doubtless agreed. We therefore find 
ourselves under the necessity of restating the question, 
making it: What ought women to be? 

Probably never in the world's history has this question 
occupied so large a place in thought as it does to-day. 
In familiar discussion, in the press, in the library, on the 
platform, the "woman question" is an all-absorbing 



Vocational Guidance for -Girls 



topic. Even the most cursory review of the literature 
of the subject leads to a realization of its importance. It 
leads also into the very heart of controversy. 

It is safe to say that no woman, in our own country at 
least, escapes entirely the unrest which this controversy 
has brought. Even the most conservative and "old- 
fashioned" of women know that their daughters are 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Suffrage parade in Washington. Women will parade or even 
fight for their rights 

living in a world already changed from the days of their 
own young womanhood; and few indeed fail to see that 
these changes are but forerunners of others yet to come. 
They know little, perhaps, of the right or wrong of 
woman's industrial position, but "woman in industry" 
is all about them. They perhaps have never heard of 
Ellen Key's arraignment of existing marriage and sex 
relations, but they cannot fail to see unhappy marriages 
in their own circle. They may care little about the 
suffrage question, but they can hardly avoid hearing 






Woman's Place in Society 5 

echoes of strife over the subject of "votes for women." 
And however much or little women are personally con- 
scious of the significance of these questions, the questions 
are nevertheless of vital import to them all. 

The " uneasy woman" is undeniably with us. We 
may account for her presence in various ways. We may 
prophesy the outcome of her uneasiness as the signs seem 
to us to point. But in the meantime — she is here! 

Naturally both radical and conservative have panaceas 
to suggest. The radicals would have us believe that the 
question of woman's status in the world requires an 
upheaval of society for its settlement. Says one, the 
"man's world" must be transformed into a human 
world, with no baleful insistence on the femininity of 
women. It is the human qualities, shared by both 
man and woman, which must be emphasized. The work 
of the world — with the single exception of childbearing 
— is not man's work nor woman's work, but the work 
of the race. Woman must be liberated from the over- 
emphasized feminine. Let women live and work as 
men live and work, with as little attention as may be to 
the accident of sex. 

Says another, it is the ancient and dishonored insti- 
tution of marriage which must feel the blow of the icono- 
clast. Reform marriage, and the whole woman question 
will adjust itself. 

Says still another, do away with marriage. "Celibacy 
is the aristocracy of the future." Let the woman be free 
forever from the drudgery of family life, free from the 
slavery of the marriage relation, free to "live," to "work," 
to have a "career." Men and women were intended to 
be in all things the same, except for the slight difference 
of sex. Let us throw away the cramping folly of the 
ages and let woman take her place beside man. 



6 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Not so, replies the conservative. In just so far as mas- 
culine and feminine types approach each other, we shall 
see degeneracy. Men and women were never intended 
to be alike. 

Thus we might go on. Without the radicals there 
would of course be no progress. Without the conserva- 
tives our social fabric would scarcely hold. Between the 
two extremes, however, in this as in all things, stands the 
great middle class, believing and urging that not social 
upheaval, but better understanding of existing conditions, 
is the world remedy for unrest; that not new careers, but 
better adjustment of old ones, will bring peace; that not 
formal political power, even though that be their just 
due, but the better use of powers that women have 
long possessed, is most needed for the betterment of 
mankind. 

It is not the province of this book to enter into con- 
troversy with either radical or reactionary, but rather to 
search for truth which may be used for adjusting to fuller 
advantage the relation of woman to society. First of all 
must be recognized the fact that the "woman movement " 
deserves the thoughtful attention of every teacher or 
other social worker, and indeed of every thoughtful man 
or woman. The movement can no longer be considered 
in the light of isolated surface outbreaks. It is rather 
the result of deep industrial and social undercurrents 
which are stirring the whole world. 

In our study of the modern woman movement, which 
as teachers in any department of educational work we are 
bound to make, the fact is immediately impressed upon 
us that home life has undergone marked changes. Con- 
ditions once favorable to the existence of the home as a 
sustaining economic unit are no longer to be found. New 
conditions have arisen, compelling the home, like other 



Woman s Place in Society 7 

permanent institutions, to alter its mode of existence in 
order to meet them. 

Briefly reviewing the causes which have brought about 
these changes in home life, we find, first, the industrial 
revolution. A large number of the activities once carried 
on in the home have removed to other quarters. In 
earlier times the mother of a family served as cook, 
housemaid, laundress, spinner, weaver, seamstress, dairy- 
maid, nurse, and general caretaker. The father was 
about the house, at work in the field, or in his workshop 
close at hand. The children grew up naturally in the 
midst of the industries which provided for the main- 
tenance of the home, and for which, in part, the home 
existed. The home, in those days, was the place where 
work was done. 

With the invention of labor-saving machinery came 
an entire revolution in the place and manner of work. 
The father of the family has been forced by this industrial 
change to follow his trade from the home workshop to the 
mechanically equipped factory. One by one, many of 
the housewife's tasks also have been taken from the 
home. To-day the processes of cloth making are prac- 
tically unknown outside the factory. Knitting has become 
largely a machine industry. Ready-made clothing has 
largely reduced the sewing done in the home. In the 
matter of food, the housekeeper may, if she chooses, have 
a large part of her work performed by the baker, the 
canner, and the delicatessen shopkeeper. Even the care 
of her children, after the years of infancy, has been 
partly assumed by the state. 

The home, as a place where work is done, has lost a 
large part of its excuse for being. Among the poorer 
classes, women, like their husbands, being obliged to 
earn, and no longer able to do so in their homes, have 

2 



8 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



followed the work to the factory. As a result we have 
many thousands of them away from their homes through 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Glove making. Women, like their husbands, have followed 
work to the factories 

long days of toil. Among ^persons of larger income, 
removal of the home industries to the factory has resulted 
in increased leisure for the woman — with what results 
we shall later consider. Practically the only constructive 
work left which the woman may not shift if she will to 
other shoulders, or shirk entirely, is the bearing of chil- 
dren and, to at least some degree, their care in early years. 
The interests once centered in the home are now scattered 
— the father goes to shop or office, the children to school, 
the mother either to work outside the home or in quest 
of other occupation and amusement to which leisure 
drives her. 

A second change in the conditions affecting home life 
is found in the increased educational aspirations of 
women. Once the accepted and frankly anticipated 



Woman s Place in Society 



career for a woman was marriage and the making of a 
home. Her education was centered upon this end. 
To-day all this is changed. A girl claims, and is quite 
free to obtain, an education in all points like her brother's, 
and the career she plans and prepares for may be almost 
anything he contemplates. She may, or may not, enter 
upon the career for which she prepares. Marriage may — 
often does — interfere with the career, although nearly as 
often the career seems to interfere with marriage. Under 
the new alignment of ideals, there is less interest shown in 




Copyright by Keystone View Co. 



Employees leaving the Elgin Watch Company factory. Thousands 

of women are away from their homes through 

long days of toil 

homemaking and more in "the world's work," with a 

decided feeling that the two are entirely incompatible. 

The girl, educated to earn her living in the market of 

the world, no longer marries simply because no other 



IO 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



career is open to her; when she does marry, she is less 
likely than formerly, statistics tell us, to have children 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A typical tenement house. Congestion means discomfort within 

the home and decreasing possibility for satisfying 

there either material or social needs 

— the only remaining work which, in these days, defi- 
nitely requires a home. Marriage and homemaking, there- 
fore, are no longer inseparably connected in the woman's 
-mind. Girls are willing to undertake matrimony, but 
often with the distinct understanding that their " careers" 
are not to be interfered with. To them, then, marriage 
becomes more and more an incident in life rather than 
a life work. 

A third disintegrating influence as affecting home life 
is the great increase of city homes. Urban conditions are 
almost without exception detrimental to home life. Con- 
gestion means discomfort within the home and decreasing 
possibility for satisfying there either material or social 
needs ; while on every hand are increasing possibilities for 






Woman's Place in Society 



ii 



satisfying these needs outside the home. Family life 
under such conditions often lacks, to an alarming degree, 
the quality of solidarity which makes the dwelling place 
a home. No longer the place where work is done, no 
longer the place where common interests are shared, the 
home becomes only "the place where I eat and sleep," 
or perhaps merely "where I sleep." The great increase 
of urban life during the last half century is thus a very 
real menace, and, since the agricultural communities 
constantly feed the towns, the menace concerns the 
country- as well as the city-dweller. 

Believing that for the good of coming generations the 
true home spirit must be saved, we shall do well to admit 
at once that the old-time home was an institution suited 




Photograph by Bro* 

In the cities there are increasing opportunities for satisfying 
material and social needs outside the home 

to its own day, but that we cannot now call it back to 
being. Nor would we wish to do so. There is no pos- 
sible reason for wishing our women to spin, weave, knit, 



1 2 Vocational Guidance for Girls * 

bake, brew, preserve, clean, if the products she formerly 
made can be produced more cheaply and more efficiently 
outside the home. 

There is danger, however, of generalizing too soon in 
regard to these industries. There is little doubt that in 
some directions, at least, the factory method has not yet 
brought really satisfactory results. How many women 
can give you reasons why they believe that it no longer 
"pays" to do this or that at home as they once did? Do 
the factories always turn out as good a product as the 
housekeeper? If they do, does the housekeeper obtain 
that product with as little expenditure as when she made 
it? If she spends more, can she show that the leisure 
she has thus bought has been a wise purchase? Is she 
justified in accepting vague generalizations to the effect 
that it is better economy to buy than to make, or should 
she test for herself, checking up her individual conditions 
and results? 

The fact is that the pendulum has swung away from 
the "homemade" article, and most of us have not taken 
the trouble to investigate whethei we are benefited or 
harmed. It may be that investigation will show us that 
the pendulum has swung too far, and that, in spite of 
factories mechanically equipped to serve us, some work 
may be done much more advantageously at home. It is 
even possible, and in some lines of work we know that 
it is a fact, that homes may be mechanically equipped 
at very little cost to rival and even to outclass the 
factory in producing certain kinds of products for home 
consumption. 

Spinning weaving, and knitting are doubtless best left 
in the hands of the factory worker. But, under present 
conditions, buying ready made all the garments needed 
for a family may be an expensive and unsatisfactory 



Woman's Place in Society 



13 



method if the elements of worth, wear, finish, and indi- 
viduality are worthy of consideration, just as buying 
practically all foodstuffs "ready made" presents a com- 
plex and disturbing problem to the fastidious and consci- 
entious housewife. There is at least a possibility that it 
would be as well for the home of to-day to retain or 
resume, systematize, and perfect some of the industries 




Copyright by Keystone View Co. 

Linen-mill workers. Spinning and weaving, whether of cotton, 

linen, silk, or wool, are more satisfactorily done by 

factory workers than in the home 

that are slipping or have already slipped from its grasp. 
It is possible to reduce some processes to a too purely 
mechanical basis. 



. 



14 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

A woman lived in our town who wasn't very wise. 
She had a reputation for making homemade pies. 
And when she found her pies would sell, with all her 

might and main 
She opened up a factory, and spoiled it all again. 

Nonsense? Yes — but with a strong element of sense, 
nevertheless. 

Entirely aside, however, from the industrial status of 
the home, unless we are to see a practical cessation of 
childbearing and rearing, homes must apparently con- 
tinue to exist. No one has yet found a substitute place 
for this particular industry. It is a commonly accepted 
fact that young children do better, both mentally and 
physically, in even rather poor homes than in a perfectly 
planned and conducted institution. And we need go no 
farther than this in seeking a sufficient reason for saving 
the home. This one is enough to enlist our best service 
in aid of homemaking and home support. 

From earliest ages woman has been the homemaker. 
No plan for the preservation of the home or for its evolu- 
tion into a satisfactory social factor can fail to recognize 
her vital and necessary connection with the problem. 
Therefore in answer to the question " What ought woman 
to be?" we say boldly, "A homemaker." Reduced to 
simplest terms, the conditions are these: if homes are to 
be made more serviceable tools for social betterment, 
women must make them what they ought to be. Con- 
sequently homemaking must continue to be woman's 
business — the business of woman, if you like — a con- 
siderable, recognized, and respected part of her " business 
of being a woman." Nor may we overlook the fact that 
it is only in this work of making homes and rearing off- 
spring that either men or women reach their highest 
development. Motherhood and fatherhood are educative 



Woman's Place in Society 15 

processes, greater and more vital than the artificial 
training that we call education. In teaching their 
children, even in merely living with their children, parents 
are themselves trained to lead fuller lives. 

" The central fact of the woman's life — Nature's reason 
for her — is the child, his bearing and rearing. There is 
no escape from the divine order that her life must be 
built around this constraint, duty, or privilege, as she 
may please to consider it." l It is the fashion among some 
women to assume that it is time all this were changed, 
and that therefore it will be changed. They look forward 
to seeing womankind released from this " constraint, duty, 
or privilege," and yet see in their prophetic vision the 
race moving on to a future of achievement. The fact, 
however, ignore it as we may, cannot be gainsaid: no 
man-made or woman-made " emancipation" will change 
nature's law. 

It was well that after centuries of repression and sub- 
jection woman sought emancipation. She needed it. 
But the wildest flight of fancy cannot long conceal the 
ultimate fact. Woman is the mother of the race. "The 
female not only typifies the race, but, metaphor aside, she 
is the race." 2 Emancipation can never free her from 
this destiny. In the United States, where woman has 
the largest freedom to enter the industrial world and 
maintain herself in entire independence, the percentage 
of those who marry is higher than in the countries where 
woman is a slave. Ninety per cent of the mature 
women in our country become homemakers for a certain 
period, and probably over 90 per cent are assistant 
homemakers for another period of years before or after 
marriage. 

1 Ida M. Tarbell, The Business of Being a Woman. 

2 Lester F. Ward, Pure Sociology. 



1 6 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Any vocational counselor who fails to reckon first with 
the homemaking career of girls is therefore blind to the 
facts of life. All education, all training, must be con- 
sidered in its bearing on the one vocation, homemaking. 
The time will come when the occupations of boys and 
men must likewise be considered in relation to home- 
making, but that problem is not the province of this 
book. 

Women will bear and rear the children of the future, 
just as they have borne and reared the children of the 
past. But under what conditions — the best or those less 
worthy? And what women — again, the best or those less 
worthy? Has woman been freed from subjection, from 
an inferior place in the scheme of life, only to become so 
intoxicated with a personal freedom, with her own per- 
sonal ambition, that she fails to see what emancipation 
really means? Will she be contented merely to imitate 
man rather than to work out a destiny of her own? We 
think not. When the first flush of freedom has passed, 
the pendulum will turn again and woman will find a 
truer place than she knows now or has known. 

Two obstacles to the successful pursuit of her ultimate 
vocation stand prominently before the young woman of 
to-day: first, the instruction of the times has imbued her 
with too little respect for her calling; second, her educa- 
tion teaches her how to do almost everything except how 
to follow this calling in the scientific spirit of the day. 
She may scorn housework as drudgery, but no voice is 
raised to show her that it may be made something else. 
With the advent of vocational guidance, vocational 
training of necessity follows close behind. And with 
vocational training must come a proper appreciation, 
among the other businesses of life, of this "business of 
being a woman." 



Woman s Place in Society 17 

Must we then educate the girl to be a homemaker, and 
keep her out of the industrial life which has claimed her 
so swiftly and in which she has found so much of her 
emancipation? No, we could not, if we would, keep 
her from the outside life. We must rather recognize her 
double vocation and, difficult though it seem, must edu- 
cate her for both phases of her "business." She will be 
not only the better woman, but the better worker, because 
of the very breadth of her vocational horizon. 

Training for homemaking, then, must go hand in hand 
with training for some phase of industrial life. Voca- 
tional guides must consider not only inclination and 
temperament, but physical condition and the supply and 
demand of the industrial world. They will consider the 
girl not merely as an industrial worker, but as a potential 
homemaker. They will, therefore, also study the effect 
of various vocations upon homemaking capabilities. 

How then shall the teaching of this double vocation be 
approached? How shall we, as teachers of girls, make 
them capable of becoming homemakers? How shall we 
make them see that homemaking and the world's work 
may go hand in hand, so that they will desire in time to 
turn from their industrial service to the later and better 
destiny of making a home? This book offers its contribu- 
tion toward answering these questions. 



CHAPTER II 
The Ideal Home 

THAT we may understand, and to some extent 
formulate, the problem which we would have girls 
trained to solve, we must of necessity study homes. 
What must girls know in order to be successful home- 
makers? 

A historical survey of the home leads us to the con- 
clusion that although times have changed, and homes 
have changed, and indeed all outward conditions have 
changed, the spiritual ideal of home is no different from 
what it has always been. The home is the seat of family 
life. Its one object is the making of healthy, wise, happy, 
satisfied, useful, and efficient people. The home is essen- 
tially a spiritual factory, whether or not it is to remain to 
any degree whatever a material one. " Home will become 
an atmosphere, a 'condition in which/ rather than 'a 
place where,' " says Nearing in his Woman and Social 
Progress. "The home is a factory to make citizenship 
in, ,, writes Mrs. Bruere. 

But although this spiritual significance of home has 
always existed, we are sometimes inclined to overlook the 
fact. Because conditions have changed, and because 
our external ideals of home have changed and are still 
changing, we fail to see that the foundation of home life 
is still unchanged. 

"I sometimes think that many women don't con- 
sciously know why they are running their homes," says 
Mrs. Frederick, author of The New Housekeeping. We 
might add that many of those who do know, or think they 



The Ideal Home 



19 



know, are struggling to attain to purely trivial or funda- 
mentally wrong ideals. It seems wise, then, for us to 
face at the outset the question "What is the ideal home?" 




Copyright by Keystone View Co. 

An attractive living room in which there is that atmosphere of 
peace so conducive to a happy family life 

Laying aside all preconceived notions, and remembering 
that changes are coming fast in these days, let us look tor 
the ideals which may be common to all homes, in city 
or country, among rich or poor. 

First of all, the home must be comfortable, and its 
whole atmosphere must be that of peace. In no other 
way can the tension of modern life be overcome. This 



20 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



implies order and cleanliness, beauty, warmth, light, and 
air; but it implies far more. It means a home planned 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A well-arranged kitchen forms an important part of the smoothly 
running mechanism of the ideal home 

for the people who will occupy it, and so planned that 
father's needs, and mother's, and the children's, will all 
be met. What does each member of the family require 
of the house? A place to live in. And that means far 
more than eating and sleeping and having a place for 
one's clothes. There must be not only a place for every- 
thing, but a place for everybody in the ideal house. The 
boys who wish to dabble in electricity, the girls who wish 
to entertain their friends in their own way, the tired 
father who wishes to read his newspaper "in peace,' ' the 
younger children who want to pop corn or blow bubbles 
or play games, all must be planned for. There will be 
no room too good for use, and no furnishings so delicate 



The Ideal Home 



21 



that mother worries over family contact with them. 
There will be a minimum of "keeping up appearances" 
and a maximum of comfort and cheer. There will be 
little formal entertaining, but many spontaneous good 
times. In addition to being comfortable, the ideal home 
must be convenient. There will be places for things, and 
every appliance for making work easy. 

The ideal mother, who is the mainspring of the smoothly 
running mechanism of the ideal home, will be scientifically 
trained for her position. Her "domestic science" will no 
longer be open to 
the criticism that 
it is not science at 
all, nor will she feel 
that her business is 
unworthy of scien- 
tific treatment. 
Always she will 
keep before her the 
object of her work 
— to make of her 
family, including 
herselj v good, hap- 
py, efficient people. 
She will not be 
overburdened with 
housework, for 
overworked moth- 
ers have neither 
time nor strength 
for the higher as- 
pects of their work. 
She will know how to feed bodies, but also how to develop 
souls. She will clothe her children hygienically, but she 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Contrast this old-fashioned kitchen with the 
modern one shown on the opposite page 



T ^ocational Guidance for Girls 



will teach them to value more the more important vest- 
ments of modesty and gentleness and courtesy. She 
will require obedience, but, as their years increase, the 
requirement will be less and less obedience to authority 
and more and more obedience to a right spirit within. 







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Photograph by Brown Bros. 

77^ wwe mother will teach her children the true value of work by 
making them wish to work with her 

She will work for her children and will make them wish 
to work with her, teaching them the true value of work 
and sacrifice. She will play with them, for their pleasure 
and development, and she will also play, in her own way, 
for her own rejuvenation and her soul's good. She will 
study each member of her family as an individual prob- 
lem, and, abandoning forever the idea of pressing any 
child's soul into the mold that she might choose, will 
rather strive to aid its growth toward its natural ideal. 
She will strive to hold and to be worthy of her children's 
confidence, that they may turn to her in those times that 
try their souls. But she will always respect the personal 
libertv of either child or husband to live his own life. 



The Ideal Home 23 

She will interest herself in the interests of husband and 
children, that she may remain a vital factor in their 
lives; and she will make the home so delightful as to 
reduce to a minimum the scattering influences that tend 
to destroy home life. She will weave intangible but 
indestructible ties of affection, holding all together and 
to herself. She will keep her interest in the outside world, 
so that she may better prepare her children to live in it 
and may resist the narrowing influence of her enforced 
temporary withdrawal. She will take some part in civic 
work and social uplift, and, when her years of child rearing 
are ended, in the leisure of middle age she will return to 
the less circumscribed life of her youth, bending her 
matured energies to the world's work. 

The father of this ideal family will be first of all a 
man happy in his work. The plodding, weary slave to 
distasteful labor can be ideal neither as husband nor as 
father. Overworked fathers are quite as impossible in 
our scheme as overburdened mothers. In ideal condi- 
tions the father will have time, strength, and willingness 
to be more of a factor in the home life than he sometimes 
is at the present time. More than that, his early educa- 
tion will have included definite preparation for home- 
making, '•so that his cooperation will be intelligent and 
therefore helpful. He will know more than he does now 
about the cost ef living and he will assist in making a 
preliminary division of the year's income upon an 
intelligent basis. He will recognize the necessity for 
equipment for the homemaking business and will con- 
tribute his share of thought and labor to improving the 
home plant. 

He will be a companion as well as adviser to his boys 
and girls and will retain their respect and love by his 
sympathetic understanding and his remembrance of the 
3 



24 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



boy's point of view. In all his dealings with his children 
he will be careful that interference with his comfort and 
convenience or the wounding of his pride by their short- 
comings does not obscure his sense of justice. He will 
be a student of child nature and will keep in view the 
ultimate good and usefulness of his child. He will regard 
his fatherhood as his greatest service to the state. 

The children reared by this ideal father and mother in 
their ideal home will grow as naturally as plants in a well- 
cared-for garden. With examples of courtesy and kind- 
ness, of cheerful work and health-producing play, ever 




Pals. The wise father will be companion as well as adviser 
to his children 

before them in the lives of their parents, they may be led 
along the same paths to similar usefulness. Their edu- 
cational problems will be met by the combined effort 



The Ideal Home '25 

of teachers and parents, and natural aptitude as well as 
community needs will dictate the choice of their life 
work. 

That this ideal family is far removed from many 
families of our acquaintance merely proves the necessity 
of training for more efficient homemaking, and indeed 
for a better conception of homemaking ideals and prob- 
lems. If we are to teach our girls and our boys to be 
homemakers, we must consider carefully what they need 
to know. If we are to counteract the tendencies of the 
past two or three decades away from homemaking as a 
vocation, we must show the true value of the homemaker 
to the community, and the opportunities which domestic 
life presents to the scientifically trained mind. 

Education for homemaking necessarily implies teachers 
who are trained for homemaking instruction; and we may 
pause here to notice that no homemaking course in normal 
school or college can be sufficient to give the teacher 
true knowledge of ideal homes. She must have seen such 
homes, or those which approximate the ideal. Perhaps 
she has grown up in such a home. More probably she has 
not. If not, it must then necessarily follow that the lower 
have been the ideals in the home where the teacher had 
her training, the more she should see of other homes, and 
especially of good homes. Her whole outlook may be 
changed by such contact; and with her outlook, her 
teaching; and with her teaching, her influence. 

If all girls grew up in ideal homes, it seems probable 
that homemaking would appeal to them quite naturally 
as the ultimate vocation. Indeed, we know that many 
girls feel this natural drawing, in spite of most unlovely 
conditions in their childhood homes. The task of mother, 
teacher, and vocational counselor (who may be either) 
in this matter is a complicated one. Some girls are not 



♦ «» 



26 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

fitted by nature to be homemakers. Some may with 
careful training overcome inherent defects which stand 
in the way of their success. Some have the natural 
endowment, but have their eyes fixed on other careers. 
Some have unhappy ideals to overcome. The fact, 
however, confronts us that at some time in their lives a 
very large majority of these girls will be homemakers. 
It is the part of those who have charge of them in their 
formative years to do two things for them: first, to train 
them so that they may understand the tasks of the home- 
maker and perform them creditably if they are called 
upon; second, to teach all those girls who seem fitted for 
this high vocation to desire it, and to choose it for at least 
part of their mature lives. 



CHAPTER III 
Establishing a Home 

CERTAIN very definite attempts are being made 
in these days to meet the evident lack of home- 
making knowledge in the rising generation. And since 
definiteness of plan lends power to accomplishment, we 
cannot do better than to analyze as carefully as possible 
the various lines of knowledge required by the prospective 
homemaker in entering upon her life work. 

What are the problems of homemaking ? And how far 
can we provide the girl with the necessary equipment 
to make her an efficient worker in her chosen vocation? 

Country life and city life are apparently so far removed 
from each other as to present totally different problems 
to the homemaker and to the vocational educator of 
girls. And yet underlying the successful management 
of both urban and rural homes are the same principles of 
domestic economy and of social efficiency. The principles 
are there, however widely their application may differ. 
While we may wisely train country girls for country living, 
and city girls to face the problems of urban life, we must 
not lose sight of the fact that country girls often become 
homemakers in the city and that city girls are often found 
establishing homes in the country. Nor should we over- 
look the truth that some study of home conditions in 
other than familiar surroundings will broaden the girl's 
knowledge and fit her in later life to make conditions 
subservient to that knowledge. 

Both rural and urban homemakers must be taught to 
appreciate their advantages and to make the most of 

27 



28 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

them. They must also learn to face their disadvantages 
and to work intelligently toward overcoming them. 

The country homemaker has no immediate need of 
studying the problems of congestion in population which 
menace the millions of city-dwellers. The country home 
has plenty of room and an abundance of pure air. Yet 
it is often true that country homes are poorly ventilated 
and that much avoidable sickness results from this fact. 
The country home is often set in the midst of great 
natural beauty, yet misses its opportunity to satisfy the 
eye in an artistic sense. Its very isolation is sometimes 
a cause of the lack of attention to its appearance to the 
passerby. 

The farmer's wife has an advantage in the matter of 
fresh vegetables, eggs, and poultry, but the city house- 
keeper has the near-by market and finds the question of 
sanitation, the preservation of food, and the disposal of 
waste far easier of solution. 

The city housewife is often troubled in regard to the 
source of her milk supply; the country-dweller has plenty 
of fresh milk, but frequently finds it difficult to be sure 
of pure water. 

The country homemaker often lacks the conveniences 
which make housekeeping easier; the city woman is often 
misled, by the ease of obtaining the ready-made article, 
into buying inferior products in order to avoid the labor 
of producing. 

The family in the farming community often has meager 
social life and lack of proper recreations; the city-dweller 
is made restless and improvident by an excess of oppor- 
tunities for certain sorts of amusement. 

Thus each type of community has its own problems. 
But practically all of these problems fall under certain 
general heads which both city and country homemakers 



Establishing a Home 



29 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A country home which, though set in the midst of natural beauty, 
yet fails to satisfy the eye in an artistic sense 




Courtesy of Mrs. Joseph E. Wins 

In contrast to the illustration above, this home shows what a few 

artistic touches may do to enhance the natural 

beamy of the surroundings 



30 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

should consider as part of their education. The present 
turning of thought toward training in these directions is 
most promising for the homes of the future. 

It is one of the misfortunes of existing conditions that 
the city and the country are not better acquainted with 
each other. Scorn frequently takes the place of under- 
standing. The town or village girl goes out to teach in 
the country school, knowing little of country living and 
less of country homes. It is difficult, if not impossible, 
for such a teacher to be an influence for good. Espe- 
cially as she approaches the homemaking problem is she 
without the knowledge which must underlie successful 
work. It is important that the city girl under such con- 
ditions should make a special effort to study country life 
and country homes in a sympathetic, helpful spirit. 

Perhaps our analysis of homemaking problems can take 
no more practical form than to follow from its hypothetical 
beginning the making of an actual home. 

No more inspiring moment comes in the lives of most 
men and women than that in which the first step is taken 
toward making their first home. There is an instinctive 
recognition of the greatness of the occasion. But igno- 
rance will dull the glow of inspiration and wrong standards 
will lead to wreck of highest hopes. Let us, therefore, 
be practical and definite and face the facts. 

A home is to be established. The first question is: 
Where? To a certain extent circumstances must answer 
this question. The character and place of employment 
of the breadwinner, the income, social relations already 
established, school, church, library, market, water and 
sanitary conditions, must all be considered. Yet even 
these regulating conditions must receive intelligent treat- 
ment. How many young homemakers have any definite 
idea as to what proportion of the income may safely be 



Establishing a Home 



3i 



expended for shelter? How many can tell the relative 
advantages of renting and owning? 

Probably the first consideration in selection is likely to 
be whether the home is to be permanent or merely tem- 
porary. When the occupation is likely to be permanent, 
the greatest comfort and well-being will usually result 




y Keystone Visw Co. 



A tenement district. One of the greatest disadvantages in urban 
life is the overcrowding in tenement houses 

from establishing early a permanent home; and this 
involves a long look ahead to justify the selection of a site. 
Not only must health and convenience be considered, but 



3 2 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

future questions relative to the expanding requirements 
of the homemakers and to the education and proper 
upbringing of a family as well. Then, too, young people 
must usually begin modestly from a financial stand- 
point, and they are therefore cut off from certain loca- 
tions which they may perhaps desire and which they 
might hope to attain in later years. In the country, 
where the livelihood is often gained directly from the land, 
a new element enters into selection and must to some 
extent take precedence over others. Soil considerations 
aside, however, we have health, beauty, social environ- 
ment, educational advantages, and expense to consider; 
and we should establish certain standards in these 
directions for our young people to measure by. 

Considerations of health must include not only climatic 
conditions, but questions of drainage, water supply, time 
and comfort of transportation to work, and the sanitary 
condition of the neighborhood. 

Prospective homemakers must learn, too, the value of 
reposeful surroundings and of some degree of natural 
beauty. They must recognize the value also of desirable 
social environment — that is, of such moral and intel- 
lectual surroundings as will be uplifting for the home- 
makers and safe for the future family. They will, it is 
hoped, learn that a merely fashionable neighborhood is 
not necessarily a desirable environment. The church, 
the school, the library, and proper recreation centers are 
also to be considered in one's social outlook. They are 
all distinctly worth paying for, as also is a good road. 

With the site selected, the great problem of building 
next confronts the homemaker. Here again the prin- 
ciples of selection should be sufficiently known to young 
people, boys and girls alike, to save them from the mis- 
takes so commonly made and frequently so regretted. 



Establishing a Home 33 

The people who can afford to employ an architect to 
design their homes are in a decided minority, and the 
only way to insure good houses for the less well-to-do 
majority is to see that the less well-to-do do not grow up 
without instruction as to what good houses are. The 
great tendency of the day in building is fortunately 
toward increased simplicity and toward a quality which 
we may call "livableness." This tendency we shall do 
well to fix in our teaching. 

In general, the good house is plain, substantial, con- 
venient, and suited to its surroundings. Efficient house- 
keeping is largely conditioned by such very practical 
details as closets and pantries, the relative positions of 
sink and stove, the height of work tables and shelves, the 
distance from range to dining table, the ease or difficulty 
of cleaning woodwork, laundry facilities, and the like. 
Housekeeping is made up of accumulated details of work, 
and adequate preparation for comfort in working can be 
made only when the house is in process of construction. 

Not less are the higher and more abstract duties of the 
homemaker served by the kind of house she lives and 
works in. In a hundred details the homemaker should 
be able to increase the efficiency of the " place to make 
citizens in." A common mistake in building produces 
a house which adds to, rather than lessens, the burdens 
of its inmates. More often than not this is the result of 
a misapprehension of what houses are for. 

There are many large mansions in our villages and 
cities built for show and display of wealth in which 
no one will live today. These houses are being torn down 
and sold for junk. The modern home is built for one 
purpose only, a home. 

We must therefore teach our boys and girls that houses 
are for shelter, work, comfort, and rest, and to satisfy 



34 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

our sense of beauty, not to serve as show places nor to 
establish for us a standing in the community proportionate 
to the size of our buildings. We must teach them to 
measure their house needs and to avoid the uselessly 
ornate as well as the hopelessly ugly. We must teach 
them to consider ease of upkeep a distinctly valuable 
factor in building. But most of all must the homemaker 
be taught that the comfort and well-being of the family 
come first in the making of plans. 

Few persons possess sufficient originality to think out 
new and valuable arrangements for houses; therefore we 
must see that their minds are rendered alert to discover 
successful arrangements in the houses they are constantly 
seeing and to adapt these arrangements to their own needs. 
Unless their minds are awakened in this direction, the 
majority will merely see the house problem in large 
units, overlooking the finer points of detail which mean 
comfort or the opposite. 

I recall spending a considerable number of drawing 
periods in my grammar-school days upon copying drawings 
of houses. I recall that we became sufficiently conver- 
sant with such terms as front elevation, side elevation, 
and floor plan to feel that we were deep in technical 
knowledge. But I do not recall that anyone suggested 
any question as to the suitability of these houses for 
homes, or opened our minds to consideration of the fact 
that house building was a proper concern for our minds. 
It was merely a case in which educative processes failed 
to function. They do things better now in many schools. 
But we should not rest until all of our prospective home- 
makers have opportunity to obtain practical instruction 
in home planning and building. 

Matters pertaining to heating, ventilating, and plumbing 
are easily taught as resting upon certain definite, well- 



Establishing a Home 35 

understood principles. Here the personal element is 
less to be considered, and scientific knowledge may be 
passed on with some degree of authority. Our courses 
in physics, chemistry, and hygiene can be made thor- 
oughly practical without losing any of their scientific 
value. Especially in our rural schools should matters of 
this sort receive careful and adequate treatment. In 
times past it was considered inevitable that the country- 
dweller should lack the advantages, found in most city 
houses, of a plentiful supply of water, radiated heat for 
the whole house, proper disposal of waste, and arrange- 
ments for cold storage. We know now that these things 
are obtainable at less cost than we had supposed ; and we 
know also that it is not lack of means, but lack of knowl- 
edge, which forces many to do without them. In many 
a farm home the doctor's bills for one or two winters 
would pay for installing proper systems of heat and 
ventilation. Everything that tends to increase the com- 
fort and safety of home life must be taught, as well as 
everything that tends to lessen the labor of keeping a 
family clean, warm, and properly fed. 

Accurate figures should be obtained to set before the 
boys and girls who will be homemakers, showing the cost, 
in time, labor, and money, of running a heating plant for 
the house as compared with several stoves scattered about 
in the dwelling. To accompany these we must have 
more figures, showing the comparative time spent in 
doing the necessary work incidental to the operation of 
each type of apparatus. We must consider the com- 
parative cleanliness of both types of heating plants, with 
their effect, first, upon the health of the family, and 
secondly, upon the amount of cleaning necessary to keep 
the house in proper condition. We must compare types 
of stoves with one other, hot-air, steam, and hot-water 



36 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



plants with one another, and various kinds of fuels, both 

as to cost and as to efficacy. 

The water question is one of real interest to both city- 

and country-dweller, although the chances are that the 

country- dweller 
knows less about 
his source of 
supply than the 
city - dweller 
can know if he 
chooses to in- 
vestigate. The 
city-dweller 
should know 
whence and by 
what means the 
water flows 
from his faucet, 
if for no other 
reason than that 
he may do his 
part in seeing 
that the money 
spent by his 
city or town 
brings adequate 
return to the 
of course, the 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A dangerous well. The rural homemaker must 

make sure that his water supply is at a safe 

distance from contaminating impurities 



taxpayer. For the rural homemaker, 
problem usually becomes an individual one. 

Is the water supply adequate? Is the water free from 
harmful bacteria? Is the source a safe distance from 
contaminating impurities? Are we obtaining the water 
for household and farm purposes without more labor than 
is compatible with good management? Is not running 



Establishing a Home 



37 



water as important for the house as for the barn? How 
much water does an ordinary family need for all purposes 
in a day? How much time does it take to pump and 
carry this quantity by hand or to draw it from a well? 
How much strength and nerve force are thus expended 
that might be 
saved for more im- 
portant work? 
Does lack of time 
or strength cause 
the homekeeper to 
"get along" with 
less water in the 
house than is really 
needed? Is there 
any natural means 
at hand for pump- 
ing the water — 
any " brook that 
may be put to 
work," any grav- 
ity system that 
may be installed ? 
If not, are there 
mechanical means 
available that 
would really pay 
for themselves in 
increased water, 
time, and comfort 
for all the family? 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Where water must be pumped and carried 

by hand much strength and nerve force 

are expended which might be kept 

for more important work 



From a consideration of water supply we pass naturally 
to questions of the disposal of waste, and here again 
is found a subject too often neglected both in town 



3$ Vocational Guidance for Girls 

and in rural communities. In the city the problems are not 
individual ones in the main, but rather questions of the 
best management and use of the public utilities concerned. 
Does the average city householder know what becomes 
of the waste removed from his door by the convenient 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A "brook put to work" may be utilized in supplying water to 
a farmhouse 

arrival of the ash man, the garbage man, the rubbish 
man? Does he know whether this waste is disposed of 
in the most sanitary way? Does he consider whether it 
is removed in such a way as to be inoffensive and without 
danger to the people through whose streets it is carried? 
Does he know anything of the cost to the city of waste 
disposal? Is it merely an expense, and a heavy one, for 
him in common with other taxpayers to bear? Or is the 
business made to pay for itself? If not, is it possible to 



Establishing a Home 



39 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A n objectionable garbage wagon. Disposal of 

waste is a subject too often neglected both 

in urban and in rural communities 



make it pay? Does any community make the waste 
account balance itself at the end of the year? 

In the country, 
once more we face 
the individual 
problem rather 
than that of the 
community. Here 
proper provision 
for the disposal 
of waste often 
necessitates more 
knowledge of the 
subject than is pos- 
sessed by the 
homemaker, or 
sometimes it requires the installation of apparatus whose 
cost seems prohibitive. A careful consideration of these 
matters will possi- 
bly disclose the 
fact that a smaller 
expenditure may 
accomplish the de- 
sired purpose. Or, 
if this is not true, 
it may be found 
that the end ac- 
complished is 
worth the expend- 
iture of what 
seemed a prohibi- 
tive sum. A water 




Photograph by Brown Bros* 

This new covered garbage wagon subjects the 
public to no danger 



closet, for instance, has not only a sanitary but a moral 
value. We must somehow educate people to understand 

4 



40 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

and to believe that the basis of family health and useful- 
ness is proper living conditions, and that some system of 
sewage and garbage disposal is a necessary step toward 
proper living conditions. With the urban population 
these matters are removed from personal and immediate 
consideration, but every rural homemaker must face his 
own problems, with the knowledge that since his conditions 
are individual his solution must be equally his own. 

In the matters pertaining to decoration within the 
house as well as beautifying its surroundings, the country- 
and the city-dweller meet on equal terms. Their prob- 
lems may differ in detail, but the principles to be studied 
are the same. Here our art courses must be made to 
contribute their share to the homemaker' s training. We 
must strike the keynote of simplicity, both within and 
without, and must teach girls especially the value of 
carefully thought-out color schemes and decorating plans, 
to be carried out by different people in the materials and 
workmanship suited to their purses. They must learn 
that expense is not necessarily a synonym for beauty; 
they must know the characteristics of fabrics and other 
. decorative materials ; and they must be trained to recog- 
nize the qualities for which expenditure of money and 
effort are worth while. 

In the designing of school buildings nowadays close 
attention is paid to beauty of architecture, symmetry of 
form, convenience of arrangement, and durable but 
artistic furnishings. All unwittingly the child receives 
an aesthetic training through his daily life in the midst 
of attractive surroundings. 

Many of our rural schools are doing excellent work in 
teaching children to beautify the school grounds. Some 
of them go farther and interest their pupils in attacking 
the problem of improving outside conditions at home. 



Establishing a Home 41 

Every child whose mind is thus turned in the direction of 
attractive home grounds has unconsciously taken a step 
toward one branch of efficient homemaking. If it were 
possible to give pupils the foundation principles of land- 
scape gardening, they might learn to see with a trained 
eye the problems they will othenvise attack blindly. 




An example of the newer architecture. An artistic approach to a 
school has a daily effect on the mind of the child 



42 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



With the house built and ready for its furniture, the 
selection of the latter becomes both part of the scheme 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Rural school with flower bed. Many of the rural schools are doing 
excellent work in teaching children to beautify the school grounds 

of decoration and part also of the domestic plans for 
securing comfort and inspiring surroundings. The same 
principles of beauty and utility, restfulness, comfort, and 
suitability, are called into requisition. The trained 
housewife will have an eye toward future dusting and will 
choose the less ornate articles. The same person, in her 
capacity as the mother of citizens, will see that chairs 
are comfortable to sit in, that tables and desks are the 
right height for work, that book cases and cabinets are 
sufficient in number and size to take care of the family 
treasures. She will use pictures sparingly and choose 
them to inspire. Perhaps, most of all, the woman with 



Establishing a Home 



43 



the trained mind will know how to avoid a superfluity 
of furniture in her rooms. She will be educated to the 
beauty of well-planned spaces and will not feel obliged 
to fill every nook and corner with chairs or tables or 
sofas or other pieces of furniture which merely "fill the 
space." 

Before furnishing is considered complete, the house- 
keeper must take into account the matter of operating 
apparatus. Perhaps a large part of this important 
department of house equipment has been built into the 
house. The water system, the sewer connection or its 
substitute, and the lighting apparatus are already in- 
stalled, so that the turn of a switch or a faucet, the pull 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

An artistic living room. The principles of beauty and utility, 

restfulness, comfort, and suitability, must all be considered 

in the furnishing of a home 

of a chain, sets one or all to work for us. We are now 
to consider whether we shall buy a vacuum cleaner or 
a broom and dustpan; a washing machine and electric 



44 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

flatiron or the services of a washerwoman, or shall tele- 
phone the laundry to call for the wash. Shall we invest 
in a "home steam-canning outfit" at ten dollars, or 
make up a list for the retailer of the products of the 
canning factory? Shall we have a sewing machine, or 
plan to buy our clothing from "the store"? 

Once upon a time practically the only labor-saving 
device possible to the housekeeping woman was another 
woman. To-day many devices are offered to take her 
place. Our homemaker must know about them, and must 
compare their value with the older piece of operating 
machinery, the domestic servant. She must know what 
it costs to keep a servant, in money, in responsibility, 
and in all the various ways which cannot be reduced to 
figures. 

Already the pros and cons of the "servant question" 
have caused much and long-continued agitation. The 
woman of the future should be taught to approach the 
matter with a scientific summing up of the facts and with 
a readiness to lift domestic service to a standardized 
vocation or to abandon it altogether in favor of the 
"labor-saving devices" and the "public utilities." 
Certain of our home-efficiency experts assure us that all 
"industries in the home are doomed." If this is true, 
the domestic servant must of necessity cease to exist. 
Most persons, however, cannot yet see how "public 
utilities" will be able to do all of our work. We may 
send the washing out, but we cannot send out the beds 
to be made, the eggs to be boiled, or the pictures, chairs, 
and window sills to be dusted. The table must be set 
at home, and the dishes washed there, until we approach 
the day of communal eating places, which, as we all 
know, will be difficult to utilize for infants and the aged, 
for invalids, and for the vast army of those who are 



Establishing a Home 



45 



averse to faring forth three times daily in search of food. 
For a long time yet the domestic servant, or her substi- 
tute, will be with us, doing the work that even so great a 
power as "public utilities" cannot remove from the home. 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Contrast the bad taste displayed in the furnishing of this hopelessly 
inartistic room with the simplicity shown in that on page 4j 

At present there is much to indicate that the servant's 
substitute, in the form of various labor-saving devices, 



46 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

will eventually fill the place of the already vanishing 
domestic worker. Whether this proves to be the case 
will rest largely with these girls whom we are educating 
to-day. The pendulum is swinging rather wildly now, but 
by their day of deciding things it may have settled down 
to a steady motion so that their push will send it defi- 
nitely in one direction or the other. 

There is no inherent reason why making cake should 
be a less honorable occupation than making underwear 
or shoes ; why a well-kept kitchen should be a less desirable 
workroom than a crowded, noisy factory. But under 
existing conditions the comparison from the point of 
view of the worker is largely in favor of the factory. 
Among the facts to be faced by the homemaker who 
wishes to intercept the flight of the housemaid and the 
cook are these : 

i. Hours for the domestic worker must be definite, 
as they are in shop or factory work. 

2. The working day must be shortened. 

3. Time outside of working hours must be absolutely 
the worker's own. 

4. The worker must either live outside the home in 
which she works, or must have privacy, convenience, 
comfort, and the opportunity to receive her friends, as 
she would at home. 

In short, the houseworker must have definite work, 
definite hours, and outside these must be free to live her 
own life, in her own way, and among her own friends, 
as the factory girl lives hers when her day's work is 
done. 

That women are already awaking to these responsi- 
bilities is shown by the increasing number who choose 
the labor-saving devices in place of the flesh-and-blood 
machine. Many of these women will tell you that they 



Establishing a Home 47 

make this choice to avoid the personal responsibility 
involved in having a resident worker in the house. There 
is comfort in not having to consider "whether or not the 
vacuum cleaner likes to live in the country," or the 
bread mixer "has a backache," or the electric flatiron 
desires "an afternoon off to visit its aunt." It is the 
same satisfaction we feel in urging the automobile to 
greater speed regardless of the melting heat, the pouring 
rain, or the number of miles it has already traveled to-day. 
Perhaps the future will see machines for household work 
so improved and multiplied that we can escape altogether 
this perplexing personal problem of "the woman who 
works for us." 

Whether or not we escape this problem when we 
patronize the laundry, the bakeshop, the underwear 
factory, is a matter for further thought. To many it 
seems a simpler matter to face the problem of one cook, 
one laundress, than to investigate conditions in factory, 
bakery, and laundry, to agitate, to "use our influence," 
to urge legislation, to follow up inspectors and their 
reports, to boycott the bakery, to be driven into the 
establishment of a cooperative laundry whether we will 
or no, in order to fulfill our obligations to the "women 
who work for us " in these various places. True, our duty 
to womankind requires that we do all these things to a 
certain extent so long as the public utilities exist, but w T ith 
the multiplication of utilities to a number sufficient to do 
a large portion of our work, it would seem that women 
would be left little time for anything else than their 
supervision and regulation. 

Problems relating to the establishing of a home would 
once have been considered far from the province of the 
teacher in the public school. Formerly we taught our 
children a little of everything except how to live. Now 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



we are realizing that the teacher should be a constructive 
social force. Living is a more complicated thing than 
it once was, and the school must do its share in fitting 
the children for their task. All these matters we have 
been considering — the selection of a home site, building, 
decorating, furnishing, sanitation, and all the rest — 
represent constructive social work the teacher may do, 
which, if she passes it by, may not be done at all. College 
courses should prepare the teacher for such work, but 
even the girl who is not college-trained will find, if she 
seeks it, help sufficient for her training. And the work 
awaits her on every hand. 






CHAPTER IV 
Running the Domestic Machinery 

WITH a home established, the problems confronting 
the homemaker become those of administration. 
The "place for making citizens" is built and ready. 
The making of citizens must begin. 

One of the fundamental requisites for the efficient 
operation of the home plant is that the homemaker shall 
have a firm grasp upon the financial part of the business. 
To estimate the number of homes wrecked every year by 
lack of this economic knowledge is of course impossible; 
but you can call up without effort many cases in which 
this lack was at least a contributing element to the wreck. 

Keeping expenditures within the income is only the 
ABC of the financial knowledge required, although, like 
other ABC's, it is essential to the acquirement of deeper 
knowledge. It is not enough that the housekeeper 
merely succeeds in keeping out of debt. She must know 
what to expect in return for the money that she spends, 
and she must know whether or not she gets it. She must 
have definitely in mind the results she expects, and she 
must know why she spends for certain objects rather 
than for others. 

In the days of famine and fear, the individual was 
fortunate who had food, shelter, and a skin to wrap about 
his shivering shoulders. In these days it is not enough 
to have merely these things. Certain standards of civi- 
lized life must be met, and we shall find that it requires 
judgment and skill to apportion our funds properly. 

The common needs of civilized mankind are usually 
roughly classified as follows: food; shelter; clothing; 

49 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 

operating expenses, including service, heat, light, water, 
repairs, refurnishing, and the general upkeep of the 
plant; advancement, including education, recreation, 
travel, charity, church, doctor, dentist, savings. 

The exact proportion of any income devoted to each 
of these is of course a matter conditioned by the needs 
of the particular family as well as by its tastes and desires. 
Figures are obtainable which throw light upon proportions 
found advisable in what are considered typical cases. 
We may learn the minimum amount of money which will 
feed a man in New York or in various other cities and 
towns. We may find estimates as to the prices of a 
" decent living" in various parts of the country. Home- 
economics experts will furnish us with figures which may 
be used as a basis for apportioning this amount among 
departments of household expenses. That the figures 
offered by these experts differ more or less widely need 
not disturb us. It is perhaps too early in such work for 
final authoritative estimates. 

The following apportionment is taken from Chapin's 
The Standard of Living among Workingmens Families 
in New York City and has to do with the minimum income 
required for normal living for a family of father, mother, 
and three children on Manhattan Island: 

Food. $359.oo 

Housing 168.00 

Fuel and light . . . 41.00 

Clothing 1 13.00 

Carfare 16.00 

Health 22.00 

Insurance 18.00 

Sundry items 74.00 

$811.00 

" Families having from $900 to $1,000 a year," con- 
cludes Dr. Chapin, "are able, in general, to get food 



Running the Domestic Machinery 5 1 

enough to keep body and soul together, and clothing and 
shelter enough to meet the most urgent demands of 
decency." Regarding incomes below $900, he says, 
" Whether an income between $800 and $900 can be made 
to suffice is a question to which our data do not warrant 
a dogmatic answer." 

The two apportionments given below have been made 
by the federal government and concern the maintenance 
of a normal standard in two industrial sections of the 
country. In each case the family is assumed to be, as 
in Dr. Chapin's estimate, 1 made up of father, mother, 
and three children. 

Fall River, Georgia and 

Mass. North Carolina 

Food $312.00 $286.67 

Housing 132.00 44.81 

Clothing 136.80 113.00 

Fuel and light .. . 42.75 49.16 

Health 11.65 16.40 

Insurance 18.40 18.20 

Sundry items. .. . 78.00 72.60 

$731.90 $600.74 

These estimates do no more than suggest the minimum 
upon which the various items of living expense can be 
met and the proportion to each account. People who 
can do more upon their incomes than merely live must 
look farther for help. 

Mrs. Bruere in her Increasing Home Efficiency offers 
the following as a minimum schedule 1 for efficient living: 

Food $ 344.93 

Shelter 144.00 

Clothing 100.00 

Operation 1 50.00 

Advancement 3 t 2 .00 

Incidentals 46.85 

$1,097.78 

*Xo studies of present-day conditions are available. The proportion spent 
for food, clothing, etc., will remain nearly the same. It is safe to multiply the 
above estimates by two to obtain the actual cost of living in the year iqiq. 



52 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

"When the income is over $1,200," Mrs. Brufere adds, 
"the family has passed the line of mere decency in living 
and entered the realm of choice. Their budget need not 
show how the entire income must be spent, but how it 
may be spent to gain whatever special end the family 
has in view." 

That any estimated schedule for any income will fit 
exactly the needs of any family of father, mother, and 
three children in any given town in the United States no 
one supposes, but it is at least a basis upon which to work. 
And perhaps the main point from an educational stand- 
point is that it is a schedule at all. 

The happy-go-lucky, spend-as-you-go style of house- 
keeping does not constitute efficiency. The homemaking 
expert we are training will have a better plan. She will 
have been long familiar with the idea of apportioning 
incomes. She will have applied the tests of efficient 
decision to her personal income before she has to attack 
the problem of spending for a family. The ideal home- 
maker of the future will be a woman who has had a 
personal income, and preferably one that she has earned 
herself and learned how to spend before she enters upon 
matrimony and motherhood. 

By the less scientific plan of merely recording what one 
has spent, when the spending is over, it is more than 
likely that some departments of home expenditure will 
gain at the expense of others. If we can afford only 
$150 for rent, and we pay $200, it is evident that we 
must go without some portion of the food or clothing 
or advancement that we need. If we dress extravagantly, 
we must pay for our extravagance by sacrificing efficient 
living in some other direction. The budget is not 
entirely or even in large measure for the sake of saving, but 
rather foi the sake of spending wisely. When women 



Running the Domestic Machinery 



53 



become as businesslike in the administration of home 
finances as they must be to succeed in business life, or as 
men usually are in their business relations, home admin- 
istration will be placed upon a secure financial footing 
and will gain immeasurably in dignity thereby. 

Feeding and clothing a family are perhaps the funda- 
mentals of the homemaker's daily tasks. And upon 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Teaching housewives food values. No housewife in these days need 
lack the knowledge of dietetics which will fit her for her task 

neither of them will the application of scientific principles 
be wasted. It is not enough that we merely set food 
before our families in sufficient quantity to appease the 
clamoring appetite. Children and adults may suffer 
from malnutrition even though their consumption of 
food is normal in quantity three times a day. No house- 
wife is properly fitted for her task unless she has some 
knowledge of dietetics. 

Many a notable housewife who has perhaps never 
even heard of dietetics has nevertheless a practical 



54 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



working knowledge of some or many of its principles. 
There are traditions among housewives that we should 
serve certain foods at the same meal or should cook 
certain foods together. Often these time-honored com- 
binations rest upon the soundest of dietetic principles. 




Blackburn College students preparing dinner. Fortunately girls 

may study dietetics in the school that teaches them the law of 

gravity and the rules for forming French plurals 

On the other hand, many cooks feed their families by a 
hit-or-miss method which as often as* not violates all the 
laws of scientific feeding, and which farmers long ago 
discarded in the feeding of their cows. 

Fortunately the girl who so desires may now learn 
something of these feeding laws in the same school that 
teaches her the law of gravitation or the rules for forming 
French plurals. Fortunately, also, the girls of to-day 
seem inclined to undertake such study. It is not too 
much to expect that the girl of the future will be able to 
set before her family meals scientifically planned or food 






Running the Domestic Machinery 55 

wisely and economically purchased, well cooked, and 
attractively served. Nor is it too much to expect that 
teachers will be able to do these things and to instruct 
others how to do them. That this ideal requires con- 
siderable and varied knowledge is clear at the outset. 
The serving of a single meal involves: (1) knowledge of 
food values, (2) skill in making a " balanced ration," 
(3) knowledge of market conditions, (4) skill in buying, 
with special reference to personal tastes and financial 
conditions, (5) knowledge of the chemistry of cooking, 
(6) skill in applying chemical knowledge, (7) skill in 
adapting knowledge of cooking to existing conditions, 
(8) knowledge of serving a meal and practice in service. 
The fact that a large proportion of deaths is directly 
due to digestive troubles is certainly food for thought. 
Such a statement alone would warrant action of some sort 
looking toward increased knowledge of food values 'and 
food preparation. It is not necessarily because people 
live upon homemade food that their digestions are 
impaired, as we so often hear stated nowadays, but 
because we have taken it for granted that, given a stove, 
a saucepan, and a spoon, any woman could instinctively 
combine flour, water, and yeast into food. There is little 
dependence upon instinct in producing the bread of 
commerce. Bakers' bread is scientifically made, no 
doubt; but there is no reason why the homemade article 
may not also be a product of science. And there will 
always be this difference between the baker and the 
housewife: the baker's profit must be expressed in dollars 
and cents, while that of the housewife will be represented 
in increased force and efficiency in the family that she 
feeds. With such differing ends in view, the processes 
and results of each must continue to differ as widely as 
we know they do at present. 
5 



56 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



It is now some years since Charlotte Perkins Gilman 
wrote of woman's work: 

Six hours a day the woman spends on food, 
Six mortal hours! 

Till the slow finger of heredity 

Writes on the forehead of each living man, 

Strive as he may: "His mother was a cook!" 

Many women now doubtless spend less time on cooking 
than when Mrs. Gilman wrote; perhaps her scorn has 
borne fruit. But the implication that being a cook is 

unworthy loses all 
its force unless it 
can be shown that 
"his mother was 
nothing but a cook. ' ' 
Even so, there are 
worse things one 
might be. It is 
true that women 
should not spend 
six hours out of 
the working day on 
merely one depart- 
ment of their 
household work. 
Yet the ill-fed fam- 
ily is out of the 
race for a place 
among the effi- 
cient. Let us then 




Blackburn College student mixing bread. 



There is no reason why homemade bread 
may not be the product of science 



teach the coming woman to use less time, more science, 
and all the labor-savers there are available, and still 
accomplish the same, or perhaps better, results. 



Running the Domestic Machinery 57 

That the question of clothing is equally fundamental, 
perhaps few of us will acknowledge. Yet we must not 
underrate its importance. Food furnishes the fuel 
with which to support the fires of life. Clothes, however, 
contribute not only to comfort and health, but to mental 
well-being and self-respect. So long as we mingle with 
our fellow men in civilized communities, raiment will 
continue to require "taking thought." That much of 
the feminine part of the population devotes an undue 
amount of thought to certain aspects of the clothing 
question we cannot deny. It is equally certain that 
many women, if not most women, devote too little 
thought to other phases of the problem. 

Present conditions seem to indicate that the average 
woman, of any class of society, places the "prevailing 
mode" first in her personal clothing problems. How to 
be "in style" absorbs much attention and time. Surely 
it is overshadowing other very important considerations 
relating to dress. When American women have awak- 
ened to the real importance of these considerations, we 
shall observe a better proportion in studying the clothes 
question. 

As a scientific foundation upon which to build her 
practical knowledge of how to clothe herself and her 
family, the girl of the future must be trained to an 
understanding of (1) the hygiene of clothes, (2) art 
expressed in clothes, (3) the psychology of clothes, (4) 
ethics as affected by clothes, (5) personality as expressed 
by clothes. 

There is no stage of life in which hygiene, art, psychol- 
ogy, and ethics do not apply to clothes. The practical 
knowledge built upon these as a foundation will guide 
the girl in choosing clothes which are suitable to the 
occasion for which they are designed, are not extravagant 



58 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



in either price or style, give good value for the money 
expended, express the individuality of the wearer, and 
exert an influence uplifting rather than the reverse upon 
the community at large. 

With such a girl, the fact that "they" are wearing this 
or that will be always a minor consideration. With 
women trained in matters of clothing, we shall no longer be 




Class in dressmaking at Blackburn College. With women scien- 
tifically trained in the matter of clothing, we shall do 
away with much of the absurdity of dress 

confronted by the absurdity of identical styles for thick 
and thin, short and tall, middle-aged and young, rich 
and poor. We shall no longer see dress dominating, as 
it does to-day, the entire lives of thousands of women. 
From the woman of wealth who spends a fortune every 
season upon her wardrobe, all the way down the money 
scale to the young girl who strains every nerve and 
spends every cent she can earn to buy and wear "the 
latest style," slavery to fashion is an evil gigantic in its 
proportions and far-reaching in its results. 



Running the Domestic Machinery 59 

We have no right to interfere with the woman's instinct 
to make herself beautiful. Rather we should encourage 
it, and should carefully instruct her in her impressionable 
years as to what real beauty is. It is almost safe to say 
that at present the principle by which the modern woman 
is guided in deciding the great questions of feminine 
attire is imitation. Incidentally, we may remark that 
nobody profits by such a mistaken foundation except the 
manufacturer, who moves the women of the world about 
like pawns on a chessboard merely to benefit his business. 
The society woman brings the latest thing "from Paris." 
The large New York establishments sell to their patrons 
copies of "Paris models." The middle-class shops and 
the middle-class women copy the copies. The cheap 
shops and the poor women copy the copy of the copy. 
Every copy is made of less worthy material than its 
model, of gaudier colors, with cheaper trimmings, until 
we have the pitiful spectacle of girls who earn barely 
enough to keep body and soul together spending their 
money for garments neither suitable nor durable — sleazy, 
shabby after a single wearing, short-lived — yet for a few 
ephemeral minutes "up to date." 

How far this heartbreaking habit of imitation extends 
in the poor girl's life we can hardly say. She marries, 
and buys furniture, crockery, and lace curtains cheap and 
unsuitable, like her clothes, always imitations and soon 
gone, to be superseded by more of the same sort. What 
thoughtful woman desires to feel herself part of an 
influence which leads to so much that is insincere, uneco- 
nomical, wasteful both of raw material and of the infi- 
nitely more important material which makes women's 
souls? What teacher of young girls has a right to hold 
back from setting her hand against the formation of habits 
so undesirable ? 



60 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

And what of the vast output of the factories which 
turn out cheap cloth, cheaper trimmings, imitations of 
silk, imitations of velvet, ribbons which will scarcely 
survive one tying, shoes with pasteboard soles, and all 
the other intrinsically worthless products which now find 
ready sale? When women have been educated to a 
standard of taste, of suitability, of quality, which will 
forbid the use of cheap imitations of elegant and costly 
articles, will not the world gain in bringing such factories 
to the making of products of real worth instead of their 
present output? 

The mother of the future will bring to bear upon the 
clothing question not only more knowledge, but more 
serious thought, than she does to-day. For the children 
she must provide comfortable, serviceable play clothes 
in generous quantity, that they may pursue their develop- 
ment unhampered in either body or mind. She must 
know the hygiene of childhood and the psychology of 
children's clothes. For the growing girls there must be 
a proper recognition of the growing interest in adorn- 
ment, avoiding the Scylla of vanity on one hand and the 
Charybdis of unhappy consciousness of being " different 
from the other girls' ' on the other. For the sons there 
must be careful provision for the athletic life so dear to 
the boy, together with due recognition of the approach- 
ing dignities of manhood, with special care for the 
small details which mark the well-groomed man. 

As in the matter of the food supply, there must be 
knowledge of markets and skill in buying. And, as in 
that case, there should be knowledge of the process of 
transforming materials into the finished product. Pro- 
cesses involving a great degree of technical skill, such as 
the tailor's art, the average woman will not attempt; 
but the simpler forms of garment making present no 



Running the Domestic Machinery 



61 



special difficulty to those who wish to try them or who 
find it expedient to do so. 

A wholesale assumption that it is only a question of a 
short time before all garment making will be done in the 
factory is probably without warrant. We read again and 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Buying clothing ready made. The question of buying clothing 

ready made or of making it will find individual solution 

according to means, inclination, and ability 

again of late, "The day of buying instead of making is 
here! We may like it or not like it, but the fact remains, 
it is here! " And then we look all about us, and find that 
the day is apparently not here for at least several thou- 
sands of people of whom we have personal knowledge. 
That discovery gives us courage to look farther. We 
find paper-pattern companies flourishing; dress goods 
selling in the retail departments as they have always sold; 
seamstresses fully occupied; and we conclude that for 
some time yet the question of buying or making will find 
individual solution, according to means, inclination, and 



62 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



ability. What we wish to guard against in the upbringing 
of our future mothers is the necessity of buying because 



W$»%t '*" * w& 


' 




^ i^ 


fft&T "' : * 








nE flBHr 


IS^HiS- ™.^..::|;w- :; ^l: 






H£i '** ''-■- 




§1SS§ 






"V'"* llA.:" "Ill 


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Photograph by Brown Bros. 

In a community preserving kitchen questions of food supply may 
sometimes be solved and community interests unified 

of a lack of the ability to make. The woman trained to 
a knowledge of the making of garments is the only woman 
who can intelligently decide the question for her own 
household. The others are forced to a decision by their 
own limitations. 

Passing from the elemental needs, shelter, warmth, 
food, and clothing, we enter upon the most complex of 
woman's duties — adjustment of her home to community 
conditions and provision for her family's share in com- 
munity life. That these more abstract problems fre- 
quently overlap the concrete ones already enumerated 
need not be said. It is impossible, even if we so desire, 
to live "to ourselves alone." We shall undoubtedly stand 
for something in the community, whether consciously 



Running the Domestic Machinery 



63 



or otherwise. If it were given us to know the extent 
of our influence, we should probably be appalled at the 
crossing and recrossing of the lines emanating from our 
daily lives. 

In some households there are definite aims in the direc- 
tion of community life. These differ widely. In many 
the question seems to be entirely, ''What can I get from 
the community?" in some, "What can I give?" in a few r , 
"What can I share?" Of the three, the last is without 
doubt the one which contributes most to community 
well-being. 

The ordryina family of necessity touches community 
life at one time or another at certain well-defined points. 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A community Christmas tree. Even the younger children may be 
given the opportunity to take part in community work 

The efficient homemaker must therefore make intelligent 
provision for these points of contact with the community. 



6 4 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Church and charity organizations have always been 
recognized in American life as community matters and 
have provided community meeting places and community 
work. Through them, especially in earlier days, women 
often found their only common activities. The school 
furnished the same common ground for the children. 
In the present time of multiplied activity these organi- 
zations still stand in the foreground. In them, both 
young and old find perhaps their best opportunity for 
"team work." 

A parish in which all pull together is perhaps as rare 
as a school in which every child truly desires to learn. 
Yet neither is beyond the possibilities. To keep each 
family in a proper attitude toward these community 
institutions is part of the homemaker's work — and a 
delicate task it often is. It is not enough for a mother 
to adopt a cast-iron policy of indiscriminate approval of 
pastor or teacher, although that is often recommended. 
Do you remember your resentment as a child of the inflex- 
ible judgment "The teacher must be right"? Really 
there is no "must" about it, and the child knows that as 
well as we. The mother, therefore, who is able to review 
the matter in dispute calmly, justly, and withal sym- 
pathetically, and who indorses the teacher's action after 
such review, is a better conserver of the public peace than 
the prejudging mother. 

Or suppose she fails to indorse the teacher's course. 
We have always been led to expect that this failure ruins 
forever the teacher's influence with the child. There 
are some of us, however, who doubt the immediate 
destruction of a wise influence, even if we should say, 
"No, I do not think I should have punished you in just 
that way. But perhaps you have not told me all that 
occurred. Or perhaps you overlook the fact that you had 



■ 






Running the Domestic Machinery 65 

annoyed Miss until, being human like the rest 

of us, she lost her temper. Is it fair for you to treat your 
teacher in such a way that you cause her to lose her self- 
control?" It is usually possible for the wise mother to 
turn her fire upon the child's own error without outraging 
the childish sense of justice by indorsing something which 
does not really deserve indorsement. 

There is, perhaps, no way in which the mother of a 
family can do so much for the community institutions as 
by keeping up her own interest in them and thus stimu- 
lating the other members of the family to a willingness 
to do their part in the work of uplift. Where everybody 
is really interested and working, the first great stumbling 
block in the way of public enterprises has already been 
surmounted. 

In the case of the school, however, the well-trained 
mother will find additional work to do. We who have 
been teachers know how vainly we have sought for inti- 
mate acquaintance on the part of parents with the school. 
And we who have been mothers know something of the 
difficulties in the way of gaining such intimate acquaint- 
ance. In spite of, or perhaps because of, my long years 
of schoolroom experience, I am quite unable to conquer 
my reluctance to knock at a classroom door. There is 
an aloofness about being a school visitor which most 
mothers feel and few enjoy. However, it is possible to 
gain so much of sympathetic understanding by persistent 
visiting that I have found it worth while to disregard my 
reluctance. 

So often we hear mothers say, "I try to visit school at 
least once each year." I wonder if they ever think of 
that one visit as an injustice to the teacher? Suppose 
that, as is quite probable, the visitor arrives at an inop- 
portune moment, finding the children in the midst of 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



work which won't "show off," or the air heavy with the 
echoes of a disciplinary encounter, or the children restless 
as the session draws to a close, or dull and listless from 
the heat of an unusually hot day. What the visitor needs 




Mothers visiting a school garden. Mothers need to visit the schools 

often in order to know something of the problems to 

be met and solved by the teachers 

to do is not to visit once a year, but to get acquainted 
with the school as she does with her next-door neighbor 
or her mother-in-law. Having done this, she may attend 
the meetings of the parent-teacher association with a 
consciousness of knowing something of the problems to 
be met and solved. Until she has formed such acquaint- 
ance she deals with unknown quantities and is therefore 
in danger of erroneous conclusions. 

It is interesting to see how completely both teacher and 
pupils take to their hearts the mother who really does get 
acquainted them. How easy it is to appeal to her for 






Running the Domestic Machinery 67 

advice and help; and what a sense of familiar ownership 
she comes to have in the school. It is no longer merely 
"what my child is learning" or whether "my children are 
getting what they ought to get in school," but rather 
"what we are doing in our school." 

The activities of women in the church usually follow 
along well-worn paths. The women help as they have 
always helped by their attendance at service, by their 
ladies' aid society or guild, by their missionary society, 
and by their aid to the poor of the town. Many strug- 
gling churches depend almost solely upon their women's 
work for support. That the woman whose problems we 
are studying should enter upon her church duties armed 
with wisdom is quite as necessary as that she should be 
earnest and enthusiastic. The church is not primarily 
a neighborhood social center. It is first of all a means 
for spiritual uplift. It must not, in a multiplicity of 
humanitarian activities, lose its character of spiritual 
guide. Its women will therefore be animated by a spirit- 
ual conception of the church and will base their activities 
in church work upon such a conception. The church 
built upon such a foundation will be foremost among 
local forces devoted to community service and will be a 
true force in the individual lives of its people. The 
women of the church need to use the church as an effec- 
tive instrument for community betterment — not merely 
material welfare, but actual increase in spiritual worth. 
Perfunctory church attendance has little part in such a 
program. It calls rather for intelligent understanding of 
church problems and an application of spiritual ideals to 
everyday life. 

Outside the organizations common to all communities 
the homekeeper finds that she must keep in touch with 
her particular neighborhood through its social life. It 



68 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

is here that her children are growing up, here that they 
find their friends, here that they give and take knowledge 
of themselves, of people, of ways to enjoy life and to 
meet its problems. Here perhaps they will find their 
life mates and will start out to be homemakers them- 
selves. The mother of a family must know her com- 
munity thoroughly. She must do her share toward 
making it a safe place and a pleasant place in which her 
children and other children may grow up, and in which 
she and her husband, other women and their husbands, 
may spend their lives. The mother who knows her 
children's friends, who makes them welcome at her 
house, who "gets acquainted' ' with their qualities good 
and bad, who is a "big sister' ' to them all, will not find 
herself shut out from her children's social life. If all the 
mothers were "big sisters" and all the fathers were "big 
brothers/' neighborhood society would be a safer thing 
than it sometimes is. 

Nor should all the social life center about the young 
people. The woman's club, the village improvement 
society, the men's civic league, all have their places. 
Club life will menace neither the man nor the woman 
whose first interest is the home; and every man and 
woman needs the stimulus of contact with other minds. 

Sometimes it will happen that the homemaker finds 
work to be done in the line of community reform. Per- 
haps the roads are out of repair, or the cemetery is neg- 
lected, or the school building insanitary. Perhaps the 
water supply is not properly guarded, or milk inspection 
not thoroughly looked after. Perhaps industrial condi- 
tions in the town are not what they should be. Perhaps 
laws are not being enforced. New conditions require new 
laws. There may be loafing places on streets and in 
stores which are dangerous. The billiard halls may need 



Running the Domestic Machinery 



6 9 













,j&tt& -1. ^K m^. a- 


4i^ ^ ^ 






lllllMJffilSlP^I^ 






if .^:. 











Photograph by Brown Bros. 

^4 road z'/z DeKalb, Illinois, before improvements were made. 

Through the agency of improvement societies, homemakers^ 

may often bring about community reforms 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

The same road after repairs were made through the efforts of 
members of the community 



70 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

a thorough moral cleaning and a moral man placed in 
charge. The public dance halls may need proper chaper- 
onage. The moving pictures need state and national 
censorship to eliminate the careless suggestions leading 
toward both vice and crime. The homemaker must 
know under such circumstances how to stir public opin- 
ion, how to make use of her existing organizations, how to 
set on foot the various movements necessary for reform. 
In connection with the subject of the homemaker's 
place in the community we must return to the thought 
of woman as the buyer for the home and of her consequent 
influence upon the economic standards of the community. 
It is not unusual in these days to read or hear such state- 
ments as the following: "The woman was no longer 
producer and consumer She became the con- 
sumer and her entire economic function changed 

The housewife is the buying agent for the home." Like 
many statements in regard to woman and her function, 
this seems overdrawn, since woman in her capacity as 
homemaker is still a producer as well as a consumer in 
thousands of cases. That she will become, economically, 
merely a buying agent, some of us not only doubt, but 
should consider a certain misfortune, should it occur. 
The fact remains, however, that as buyer of both raw 
materials and finished products the woman spends a 
very large percentage (some say nine-tenths) of the money 
taken in by the retail merchants of the country. This 
gives, or should give her, a commanding position in the 
producing world. If the women of America should 
definitely decide to-day that they would buy no more 
corn flakes, or mercerized crochet cotton, or silk elastic, 
the factories now so busy turning out these products 
would be shut down to-morrow until they could be 
converted to other uses. Women often fail to realize their 






Running the Domestic Machinery 7 1 

power in this direction. When they do realize it, they 
are able to accomplish quietly all sorts of reforms in the 
mercantile and industrial worlds. There need be no 
crusade against adulterated foods other than real educa- 
tion and the refusal of homemakers to buy from mer- 
chants who carry them in stock. The same remedy 
will apply to overworked and underpaid workers, to 
insanitary shops and factories. That it is the woman's 
duty to control these matters is a necessary conclusion 
when we consider her power as the " spender of the family 
income.' ' Who else has this power as she has it? 

We have already noted how this power might be used 
to regulate not only the quality but the character of prod- 
ucts in the factories. If women merely passed by the 
outlandish hats, the high heels, the hobble skirts, of 
fashion, their stay would necessarily be short. The 
woman, therefore, if she choose, is absolutely the^ con- 
troller of production along most lines of food and raiment. 
That she shall use this controlling power wisely is one of 
her obligations. And to meet the obligation she must 
be wisely trained. 

It would seem that the homemaker, as we have con- 
ceived her, has a part in most of the concerns of the com- 
munity. We speak of " woman and citizenship." To 
many this means, perhaps, "woman and suffrage." 
Woman in politics is already an accomplished fact in 
fourteen western states. Suffrage has been granted her 
in the state of New York. That her political influence 
will widen seems a foregone conclusion. She must 
therefore be prepared for real service in civic concerns. 
Women have already applied their housecleaning knowl- 
edge and skill to the smaller near-by problems of civic 
life. As time goes on they must render the same service 
to state and nation. 



72 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

We shall soon see nation-wide " votes for women," 
in our own country, at least. But whether we do or 
not, or until we do, woman and citizenship are, as 
they have always been, closely linked together. In every 
community relation the homemaker is the good, or 
indifferent, or bad citizen; and in every home relation 
she is the citizen still, and, more than that, the mother 
of future citizens. 

In spite of the " uneasy women" who feel that the 
home offers insufficient scope for their intellectual powers, 
the executive ability required to run a home smoothly 
and well is of no mean order. "This being a mother is a 
complicated business," as one mother of my acquaintance 
expresses it. Can we afford to have homemaking under- 
rated as a vocation, to be avoided or entered into lightly, 
often with neither natural aptitude nor training to serve 
as guide to the "complications"? It would seem not. 
We must then consider "guidance toward homemaking" 
as a necessary part of a girl's education and as a possible 
solution of the home problems on every hand. 

We have thus far in this book concerned ourselves with 
making plain our ideal of girlhood and womanhood and 
with considering the problems which our girl and woman, 
when we have done our best to prepare her, will have to 
meet. We have thus far not concerned ourselves with 
the questions of how, when, and where the work of 
preparation is to be done. A clear vision of the end to 
be attained, not obscured by thought of the means used 
in reaching it, seems a necessity. From this we may 
pass on to careful, detailed consideration of agencies and 
methods. Knowing what we desire our girls to be, we 
may enlist all the forces which react upon girls to make 
them into what we desire. 



PART II 
GUIDING GIRLS TOWARD THE IDEAL 



U A vocational guide is one who helps other people 
to find themselves. Vocational guidance is the 
science of this s elf -discovery " 



CHAPTER V 
The Educational Agencies Involved 

THE three agencies most vitally concerned in this 
problem of "woman making" are necessarily the 
home, the church, and the school — the home and the 
church, because of their vital interest in the personal 
result; the school, because, whatever public opinion has 
demanded, schools have never been able to turn out 
merely educated human beings, but always boys and 
girls, prospective men and women. And so they must 
continue to do. Nature reasserts itself with every coming 
generation. This being so, we must continue to "make 
women." If we desire to make homemaking women, 
the most economical way to accomplish this is to use the 
already existing machinery for making women of some 
sort. We cannot begin too soon, nor continue our 
efforts too faithfully. The school cannot leave the whole 
matter to the home, nor can the home safely assume 
that the "domestic science" course or courses will do all 
that is needed for the girl. Being a woman is a com- 
plex, many-sided business for which training must be 
broad and long- continued. 

The teacher has perhaps scarcely realized her respon- 
sibilities or her opportunities in this matter. For years, 
and in fact until very recently, the whole tendency 
in education for girls has been toward a training which 
ignores sex and ultimate destiny. The teachers them- 
selves were so trained and are therefore the less 
prepared to see the necessity for any special teaching 

75 



76 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

along these lines. They may even resent any demand 
for specialized instruction for girls. 

Yet we are confronted by the fact that the majority 
of girls do marry, and that many of this majority are 
woefully lacking in the knowledge and training they 
should have. Nor are these girls exclusively from the 
poor and ignorant classes. There is no question about 
the responsibility of the school in the matter. The state 
which "trains for citizenship " cannot logically ignore the 
necessity for training the mothers of future citizens. 

"While I sympathize profoundly with the claim of 
woman for every opportunity which she can fill," says 
G. Stanley Hall in Adolescence, "and yield to none in 
appreciation of her ability, I insist that the cardinal 
defect in the woman's college is that it is based upon the 
assumption, implied and often expressed, if not almost 
universally acknowledged, that girls should primarily 
be trained to independence and self-support; and matri- 
mony and motherhood, if it come, will take care of 
itself, or, as some even urge, is thus best provided for," 
This criticism of existing educational conditions is quite 
as applicable to schools for younger girls as to those which 
Dr. Hall has in mind. There is no reason why both 
school and college may not fit girls 'for a broad and general 
usefulness, for "independence and self-support," and at 
the same time give them the training for that which, 
with the majority already mentioned, comes to be the 
great work of their lives. 

Through all the lower grades of school life, and to a 
certain extent through the whole course, the methods of 
instruction used will be largely indirect. The child will 
seldom be told, "This is to teach you how to keep house." 
I can think of no field in which this indirect method will 
produce greater results than the one we are considering. 



The Educational Agencies Involved 



77 




Montavilla School garden, Portland, Oregon, where boys and girls raise 

vegetables for serving in the lunchroom. Here the science of growing 

things is taught as part of the " training for citizenship" 




Lunchroom where vegetables grown in the Montavilla School 
garden are prepared and eaten 



78 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



The teacher, in most cases, must begin her home- 
making training by realizing that her own example is 
by the very nature of things opposed to the homemaking 
principle, the unmarried teacher being the rule in most 
of our schools. Her first care, then, must be to counter- 
act her own example. Her references to home life must 
be always of the most appreciative and even reverent 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A model school home. One way of teaching children how to 

11 keep house 11 is by means of the model home where they are 

given instruction in all the duties of the homemaker 

sort. If, as is quite possible, she comes from unsatis- 
factory conditions in her own home, she must be doubly 
careful lest her prejudices be passed on to her pupils. 
She will find ways in which to let it be understood that 
her ideals of home life are not wanting, although she has 
not as yet — perhaps for some reason never will — become a 
homemaker. I have sometimes thought that teachers, in 
their effort to impress children in more direct ways, lose 
sight of the great effect of their unconscious influence. 



The Educational Agencies Involved 



79 




Canning tomatoes at the Montavilla School. In such a class the 

mothers of future citizens are given training in one of the 

fundamental needs of the home — scientific cooking 




Lunchroom where children benefit by the scientific cooking of the 
vegetables they grow 



80 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

After all, it is what the teacher does, rather than what she 
says, that impresses; and what she is, regulates what she 
does. The teacher must, therefore, have the right 
attitude toward homemaking and domestic life. It 
may be of the greatest value in determining the force 
of her influence in this direction for the children to catch 
intimate little glimpses of her domestic accomplishments, 
of her sewing, or of her cooking, or of her quick knowledge 
and deft handling of emergency cases. The teacher whose 
influence is felt most and lasts longest is the one whose 
"motherliness" supplements her academic acquirements 
and supplies a sympathetic understanding of the child. 

With innate motherliness as a basis, the teacher must 
build up a careful understanding not only of child nature, 
but of man and woman nature as the developed product 
of child growth. She must be a student of the " woman 
question" as a vital problem, always recognizing that the 
whole social structure inevitably depends upon the status 
of woman in the world. She must face without flinching 
her responsibilities in sex matters. She may, or may 
not, be called upon to furnish sex instruction to the 
girls under her care, but no rules can free her from her 
moral responsibility in striving to keep the sex atmosphere 
clean and invigorating. The " conspiracy of silence" on 
these subjects is broken, and we must accept the fact 
that modesty does not require an assumed or a real igno- 
rance of the most wonderful of nature's laws. "The idea 
that celibacy is the ' aristocracy of the future ' is soundly 
based if the Business of Being a Woman rests on a mys- 
tery so questionable that it cannot be frankly and truth- 
fully explained by a girl's mother the moment her interest 
and curiosity seek satisfaction." 1 And what the mother 
should tell, the teacher must know. 

1 Ida M. Tarbell, The Business of Being a Woman. 



The Educational Agencies Involved 



81 



Practical use of the teacher's carefully worked- out 
theories will be made all along the line of the girl's, and 
to a certain degree the boy's, education. The indirect 
teaching of the primary grades will give place in the 
higher grades to more direct dealing with the science, or, 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Mothers 1 and daughters' meeting on sewing day. Cooperation 

between the home and the school makes for the best 

teaching of domestic science 

better, sciences, upon which homemaking rests. The 
classroom becomes a " school of theory.' ' The home 
stands in the equally vital position of a laboratory in 
which the girl sees the theory worked out and in time 
performs her own experiments. The finest teaching 
presupposes perfect cooperation between school and 
home. 

The first duty of the mother, like that of the teacher, 
is to preserve always a right attitude toward home life. 
The girl who grows up in an ideal home will be likely to 
look forward to making such a home some day. Or, if 



82 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

the home is not in all respects ideal, the father or mother 
who nevertheless recognizes ideal homes as possible may 
show the girl directly ' or otherwise how to avoid the 
mischance of a less than perfect home. 

The prevalence of divorce places before young men and 
women sad examples of mismating, of incompetent home- 
makers, of wrecked homes. We can scarcely estimate the 
blow struck at ideals of marriage in the minds of girls 
and boys by these flaunted failures. Nor can we even 
guess how many boys and girls are led to a cynical attitude 
toward all marriage by their daily suffering in families 
where parents have missed the real meaning of "home." 
However practical we may become, therefore — and we 
must be practical in this matter — we must never overlook 
the need for parents to give home life an atmosphere of 
charm. No one else can take their place in doing this. 
Hence it is their first duty to make homemaking seem 
worth while. 

The home must take the lead also in giving the idea of 
homemaking as a definite and scientific profession. The 
school may teach the science, but unless the home 
shows practical application of the scientific principles, it 
would be much like teaching agriculture without show- 
ing results upon real soil. Skillful teachers recognize the 
home as a valuable adjunct to their school equipment 
and are able by wise cooperation to use it to its full value. 

The home, in its character of laboratory for the school 
of domestic theory, must possess certain qualifications. 
Like all laboratories, it should be well equipped. This 
does not mean necessarily with expensive outfit, but 
with at least the best that means will allow. It implies 
that the home shall be recognized as a teaching institution 
quite as much as the school. Like other laboratories, 
it must be a place of experiment, not merely a preserver 



The Educational Agencies Involved 



83 




Courtesy of L. A. Alderman 



First crop of radishes and lettuce at the Alameda Park School, Portland, 

Oregon, June, iqi6. Even in the primary grades children may 

learn much about the science of growing things 




Bringing exhibits to a school fair in Tacoma, Washington. Skillful 

teachers who recognize the home as a valuable adjunct to the school 

equipment encourage the children to make gardens at home 



84 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

of tradition. The efficient laboratory presupposes an 
informed and open-minded presiding genius. 

The greatest service that the home can render in the 
cause of training girls for homemaking is probably close, 
painstaking study of its own individual girl — her likes, 
dislikes, aptitudes, and limitations. Home-mindedness 
shows itself nowhere so much as in the home; lack of 
home-mindedness shows there quite as much. The 
results of such study should throw great light upon the 
problem of the girl's future. Combined with the observa- 
tions recorded by her teacher during year after year of 
the girl's school life, this study offers the strongest argu- 
ments for or against this or that career. Frequent and 
sympathetic conferences between parent and teacher 
become a necessity. There is then less likelihood of 
opposing counsel when the girl seeks guidance toward her 
life work. 

It is quite probable that, while the school undertakes 
to lay a general foundation for homemaking efficiency, 
the home, when it reaches the full measure of its power 
and responsibility, will be best fitted to help the girl to 
specialize in the direction most suited to her individual 
power. It can, if it will, give the girl individual oppor- 
tunities such as the mere fact of numbers forbids the 
school to give. 

The special work of the church in training the girl is 
necessarily that which has to do with her spiritual concept 
of life, the strengthening of her moral fiber. Here school, 
home, and church must each contribute its share. None 
of them can undertake alone so important and delicate 
a task. Any attempt to make arbitrary divisions in the 
work of these three agencies is bound to be at least a 
partial failure. Conditions differ so widely that we can 
only say of much of the work, "at school or church or in 






The Educational Agencies Involved 85 

the home," or, better, "at school and church and home 
in cooperation." Each must supplement the efforts of 
the other, and where one fails, the other must take up 
the task. It really matters little where the work is done, 
provided that it is done. The ensuing chapters of this 
book are written in the hope that they may bring the vital 
problems of girl training and girl guidance home to both 
teacher and parent ; and especially that they may convince 
both of the value of cooperation in the inspiring work 
of helping our daughters to make the most of their lives. 



CHAPTER VI 
Training the Little Child 

CHILDREN are the home's highest product.' ' 
That means at the outset that we have children 
because we believe in them, and that we train them, 
as the skilled workman shapes his wood and clay, to 
achieve the greatest result of which the human material 
is capable. 

A factory's output can be standardized. An engine's 
power can be measured. But he who trains a child can 
never fully know the mind he works with nor the result 
he attains. We do know, however, that if it is subject 
to certain influences, trained by certain laws, the chances 
are that this mind which we cannot fully know will react 
in a certain way. 

To attempt in a chapter to outline a system of training 
for children would be an attempt doomed to certain 
failure. Books are written on this subject, and the 
shelves of the child-study and child-training department 
in the libraries are rapidly filling. What I have in mind 
here is rather a single line of the child's development — 
that which leads toward making him a useful factor in 
the home life of which he forms a part. The boy or girl 
who fills successfully a place in the home of his childhood 
will be in a fair way to undertake successfully the greater 
task of founding a home of his own. 

In the days of infancy and early childhood, training 
for boys and girls may be more nearly identical than in 
later life. A large part of the differentiation in the work 
and play of little boys and girls would seem to be quite 

86 



Training the Little Child 



87 



artificial. We give dolls to girls and drums to boys, but 
only because of some preconceived notion of our own. 
The girls will drum as loudly and the boys care for the 
baby quite as tenderly, until some one ridicules them and 
they learn to simulate a scorn for " boys' things" and 
"girls' things" which they do not really feel. 

Throughout this chapter, therefore, it is to be assumed 
that the training 
suggested is quite 
as applicable and 
quite as necessary 
for one sex as for 
the other. 

Young mothers 
sometimes ask 
the family doctor, 
"When shall I be- 
gin to train the 
baby to eat at reg- 
ular intervals, to 
go to sleep without 
rocking, in general 
to accept the plan 
of life we outline 
for him?" The 
answer seldom 
varies: "Before 
he is twenty-four 
hours old." It is 
therefore evident 
that all the basic 
principles of living, whether physical or mental, must 
have their foundations far back in the child's young life. 

As a basis for all the rest, we must work for health. 



r 


"--''^ 'Zw. 


Hit 

1 1 n^ 


| 






rr-m 


5 ■ i 




So 


SL 


\. 


' 


w f 



Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Helping with the housework. The boy or girl 
who successfully fills a place in the home of 
his childhood will be in a fair way to under- 
take successfully the greater task of founding 
a home of his or her own 



88 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



A truly successful life, rounded and full, presupposes 
health. Regular habits, nourishing food, plenty of sleep, 
are axiomatic in writings treating of the care of young 
children, yet it is surprising how often these rules are 
violated. "It is easier" to give the child what he wants 
or what the others are having; easier to let him sit up 
than to put him to bed; easier to regard the moment than 

the years ahead. 
Aside from the 
physical foundation, 
the training that we 
are to give our little 
children will prob- 
ably be based upon 
our conception of 
what they need to 
make them good 
sons and daughters, 
good brothers and 
sisters, good friends, 
good husbands and 
wives, and good 
fathers and mothers. 
In other words, it 
is the social aspect 
of life that we have 
in mind, and our 
social ideals. What- 
ever the boy ' ' wants 
Already well started on his education , * + * 

to be when he grows 

up," he is sure to have social relations with his kind. 
Whether the girl marries or remains single, she cannot 
entirely escape these relations. Indeed they are thrust 
upon both boy and girl already. What then do they 





1 


14 is * f 




4 1 






■ 1 




./;; 


J^Dy^ 




^ - ' Hi 













Training the Little Child 89 

need to enable them to be successful in the human 
relations of living? 

We might enumerate here a long list of virtues that will 
help, but, since long lists shatter concentration, let us 
narrow them to four: (1) sympathy, (2) self-control, 
(3) unselfishness, (4) industry. 

I do not mean to say that, with these four qualities 
only, a man will make a successful merchant or farmer, 
or that a woman will become a good housekeeper or a 
skillful teacher. But I do mean that in family relations 
these four qualities are worth more than intellectual 
attainments or any sort of manual skill. It is really 
astonishing to see how much these four will cover. We 
desire thrift — what is thrift but self-control? Tolerance 
— what but sympathy — the "put yourself in his place" 
feeling? Courtesy — what but unselfishness? 

Let us, then, in the child's early years concentrate upon 
sympathy, self-control, unselfishness, and industry. You 
will doubtless remember Cabot's summary of the four 
requirements of man 1 — work, play, love, and worship. 
Suppose we could write on the wall of every nursery 
in the land : 

Sympathy 



Self-control 

Unselfishness 

Industry 



in 



Work 
Play 
Love 
Worship 



Would not this writing on the wall be a fruitful reminder 
to the mothers ? 

The period of early childhood is the one in which the 
home may act with least interference as the child's teacher. 
Later, whether she will or no, the mother must share the 
work of training with the school, the church, and that 
indefinite influence we class vaguely as society. During 

1 Cabot, What Men Live By. 



90 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

these few early years, then, the mother must use her 
opportunity well. It will soon be gone. 

How shall she teach such abstract virtues as sympathy, 
unselfishness, self-control? Recognizing the fact that the 
little child acts merely as his instinct and feelings prompt, 
she must make all training at this stage of his life take the 
form of developing the instincts. Probably the strongest 
of these at this time is imitation. Consequently most of 
the teaching must take advantage of the imitative instinct. 
The first care should be to surround the child with the 
qualities we desire him to possess. The mother who 
scolds, gives way to temper, or is unwilling or unable to 
control her own emotions and acts can hope for little self- 
control in her child. In the same way the father who 
kicks the dog or lashes his horse or is hard and cold in his 
dealings with his family may expect only that his child 
will begin life by imitating his undesirable qualities. 
This necessary supervision of the child's environment is 
a strong argument for direct oversight of little children 
by the mother. It is often difficult even for her to keep 
an ideal example before the child; and if she leaves it to 
hired caretakers, they seldom realize its necessity or are 
willing to take the pains she would herself. Especially is 
this true of the young and ignorant girls who are often 
seen in sole charge of little children. 

This first step being merely passive education, it is not 
enough. We must not only set an example; we must go 
farther and strive to get from the child acts or attitudes 
of mind based upon these examples. 

Let us take first the quality of sympathy, which is 
closely allied to reflex imitation. It is difficult to say 
just when the child merely reflects the emotions of those 
about him and when he consciously thinks of others as 
having feelings like his own. This conscious thought is, 



Training the Little Child 



9i 



of course, the foundation of real sympathy, and it comes 
early in the child's life — probably before the fourth year. 
A little girl of three was greatly interested and pleased 
at the appearance of a roast chicken upon the family 
dinner table. She chattered about the ' 'birdie" as she 




Copyright by Under,, w^ ^ 

Stories that broaden the child's conception of the lives and feelings 
of others are of value in training for sympathy 

had done before on similar occasions. But when the 
carving knife was lifted over it, she astonished everyone 
by her terrified cry of " Don't cut the birdie. Hurt the 
birdie." No explanation or excuse satisfied her, and it 
was finally necessary to remove the platter and have the 
carving done out of her sight. Most children are naturally 
sympathetic when they have experienced or can imagine the 
feelings of others. The cruelty of children is usually due 
to their absorption in their own feelings without a realiza- 
tion of the pain they inflict. 



92 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Training for sympathy then must consist of enlarge- 
ment of experience and cultivation of imagination. Some 
mothers do not talk enough with their children. They 
talk to them — that is, they reprimand or direct them, 
but do not carry on conversations, as they might do 
greatly to the child's advantage. Telling stories is one 
of the most fruitful methods of training at this age. Even 
"this little pig went to market" has possibilities in the 
hands of a skillful mother. The bedtime story is a definite 
institution in many families. It deserves to be so in all. 
Beginning with the nursery rimes, the stories will 
gradually broaden in theme, and if their dramatic possi- 
bilities are at all realized by the story-teller, the children 
will broaden in their conception of the lives and feelings 
of others. Sympathy will thus in most cases be a plant 
of natural and easy growth. 

Intercourse with other children and with the older 
members of the child's family will also furnish constant 
material for the thoughtful mother. The baby bumps its 
head, and the mother soothes it with gentle, loving words. 
It is more than likely that the three- or four-year-old will 
express his sympathy also. Surely he will if the mother 
says, "Poor baby. See the great bump. How it must 
hurt!" Or perhaps "big sister" is happy on her birth- 
day. Again, the three-year-old is likely to show happiness 
also, and the wise mother will help the child by a timely 
word to take the step from reflex imitation of happiness 
to true sympathy. Nor must we overlook the occasions 
when some one in the nursery has been "naughty" and 
must be punished. "Poor Bobby! He is sad because he 
cannot play with us this morning. He feels the way you 
did when you were naughty and had to sit so still in your 
little chair. I am sorry for Bobby — aren't you? We 
hope he will be good next time, don't we?" 



Training the Little Child 



93 



Teaching self-control is quite a different matter from 
the foregoing, and one which requires infinitely more 
work and patience. The first step is, however, the same. 
If you would have sympathy, show sympathy. If you 
would have self-control in a child, control yourself. 
Remember the strength of the imitative instinct. Next, 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Kindergarten games afford the intercourse with other children 
necessary to the child's development 

strive to obtain control in the young child in some small 
matter where control is easy. Any normal child will 
learn that control pays — if you make it pay. Encourage 
the hungry child to stop crying while you prepare his 
food, but prepare it quickly, or he will begin to cry again 
to make you hurry. Mothers usually work hard to teach 
control of bodily functions, but often far less to obtain 
control of mental and moral conditions. Obedience, con- 
sidered from time immemorial the chief virtue of child- 
hood, is reallv onlv of value as it conduces to self-control 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 

in later life. The wise parent, therefore, while requir- 
ing obedience for the convenience of the family and the 
safety of the child, will lay far more stress upon teaching 
the child to control himself. The work must be done 
almost entirely by indirect methods during the early 
years. Offering artificial rewards and dealing out artificial 




Courtesy of the United Charities of Chicago 

A group of children at the Mary Crane Nursery, Chicago. Children 
acquire self-control by learning to help themselves 

punishments are the crudest forms of encouraging effort. 
The natural reward and the inevitable natural punish- 
ment are far better when they can be employed. 

The child who overcomes his tendency to play before 
or during his dressing may be rewarded by some special 
morning privilege which will automatically regulate itself. 
In our family it is the joyful task of bringing in and dis- 
tributing the morning mail. The child not dressed "on 
time" necessarily loses the privilege. We are not punish- 
ing, but "we can't wait." Lack of control of temper 



Training the Little Child 95 

presupposes solitude. " People can't have cross children 
about." Quarrels inevitably bring cessation of group 
play or work — solitude again. The child's love of appro- 
bation may also be made of great assistance. Always 
we must remember that doing what we tell him to do is not 
after all the main thing. It is doing the right thing, being 
willing to do the right thing, and being able to hold back 
the impulse to do the wrong thing, that count. We are 
working "to train self -directed agents, not to make 
soldiers." 

Unselfishness is a plant of slow growth. Indeed it is 
properly not a childish trait at all, and the most we can 
probably get is its outward seeming. But it is important 
that we at least acquaint the child with ideals of unselfish- 
ness. We must find much in the child to appeal to, 
even though altruistic motives do not appear until much 
later than this. The love of approbation will prove a 
strong help again, also the sense of justice with which 
children seem endowed from the beginning. "Help him 
because he helped you," or "Give her some because she 
always gives you part of hers," is often effective. Just 
as in the case of self-control, the child will learn to over- 
come his innate selfishness "if it pays" to do so. It 
may seem wrong to encourage any but the highest motive, 
but a habit of unselfish acts, resting upon a desire to 
win the approbation of others, is a better foundation 
upon which to build than no foundation at all. Purely 
disinterested or altruistic motives do not appear in the 
normal child much before the age of adolescence, and by 
that time selfishness, which accords so well with the 
individualistic instincts of the child, will have hardened 
into a fixed habit if not vigorously checked. 

Care must be taken to lead the child toward unselfish 
acts, but not to force them upon him. The common 



g6 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

courtesies of life we may require, but, beyond that, 
example, tactful suggestion, wisely chosen stories, and 
judicious praise will do far more than force. 

The idea of kindness may be grasped by young children 
and, together with the great ideal of service, should be 
emphasized in their home life and in their intercourse 
with other children. The "only child" suffers most from 
lack of opportunity to learn these two great needs of his 
best self — kindness and service. Occasions should be sys- 
tematically made for such a child (indeed for all children) 
to meet other children on some common ground. Play- 
things should be shared, help given and received, and the 
idea of interdependence brought out. "We must help 
each other" should be emphasized from early childhood. 

Much must be made of the little helps the child is able 
to give in the home — bringing slippers for father, going 
on little errands about the house for mother, picking up 
his own playthings, hanging up his coat and hat, caring 
for the welfare of the family pets. Careful provision 
should be made for the child's convenience in performing 
these little services. There must be places for the toys, 
low hooks for the wraps, and constant encouragement 
and recognition of the small helper. Some day he may 
help you because he loves to help. Now he loves to be 
praised for helping. 

Activity is a natural and absorbing part of a child's 
life. He is always doing something. It remains for the 
parent to direct this restless movement and to transform 
some of it into useful labor. Work, in the sense of 
accomplishing results for the satisfaction and benefit of 
the parent, is quite foreign to our plan for training the 
young child. But work for the child's own satisfaction 
and for the formation of the habit of industry must occupy 
our attention in large measure. The child's playthings 



Training the Little Child 



97 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Helping the little sister. Children will learn unselfishness and 
kindness if they are early taught to help one another 



98 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

should from his earliest days be chosen in recognition of 
his desire to do things and make things. The shops are 
filled with showy toys, mechanical and otherwise, and 
children find the toyshop a veritable fairyland. But once 
satiated with the sight of any particular toy, however 
cunningly devised — and satiety comes soon — the child 
forsakes the gorgeous plaything for his blocks, or paper 
and a pair of scissors, or even his mother's clothespins. 
He can do something with these. 

The Montessori materials are perhaps the most thought- 
fully planned in this direction of anything now obtainable; 
and no one having the care of young children should be 
without some knowledge of this now famous method. 
All the materials have this advantage : they offer definite 
problems and consequently afford the child the joy of 
accomplishment. A few of the occupations of life afford 
us unending enjoyment at every stage of the doing, but 
not many. It is rather the achievement of our end, the 
"lust of finishing,' ' which carries us through the tiresome 
details of our work. The child must therefore be early 
introduced to the joy of accomplishment. Instead of 
unending toys, give him something to work with. He 
will appreciate your thoughtfulness, and he will find not 
only joy but real development in their use. 

At first the child's work will consist of fragmentary 
efforts, but at a remarkably early age he will show evidence 
of a power of concentration and persistence which will 
make possible the accomplishment of finished undertak- 
ings. He begins to know what he wants to do and to 
exhibit considerable ingenuity in finding and combining 
materials. Most of all, he wants to imitate the activities 
he sees around him. 

In the strain of modern life a widespread restlessness 
seems to have seized mankind. Whatever people do, 



Training the Little Child 



99 



they want to be doing something else, and the pathway 
of the average individual is strewn with crude beginnings, 
half-finished jobs, abandoned work. The child very 
easily falls into line with this tendency of his elders. 
Hence he needs definite encouragement to see clearly 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Helping in the home tasks. Wisely directed activity will teach 
the child both unselfishness and industry 

what he has in hand and to bring his industrial attempts 
to a worth-while conclusion. Avoid, even with a little 
child, that inconsiderate habit of "grown-ups" of calling 
the little worker away whenever you desire his attention 
or help, quite regardless of the damage you may do to 
his work by your untimely interruption. Keep the child, 
as far as possible, too, from undertaking tasks too difficult 
or requiring too much time for completion. Discourage 
aimless handling of tools. A cheerful "What are you 
making? " sometimes crystallizes hitherto rambling desires. 
A timely suggestion often meets with enthusiastic response. 



ioo Vocational Guidance for Girls 

The working outfit of a child under school age may or 
may not include kindergarten or Montessori material. 
Balls, blocks, pencils and paper, paste, colored crayons, 
scissors, a blackboard, a cart, a wheelbarrow, stout 
little garden tools, a sand tray or, better, in summer an 
outdoor sandpile, will furnish endless work and endless 
delight to a child or group of children. It is not so much 
what sort of material we use as the way in which we use 
it. Even at this age the child longs to be a producer, to 
"make things"; and his best development requires that 
we train this inclination. There is a prevalent notion 
that women especially are no longer required to be pro- 
ducers and that all our energies should be bent toward 
the sole task of making them intelligent consumers. 
There is, however, a joy in producing without which no 
life is really complete. And no scheme of education can 
be a true success which ignores or neglects the necessity 
of producing. The joy of work, the delight in achieve- 
ment, should be the keynote of all industrial training. 
This should be kept constantly in view. 

To most people there is something wonderfully appeal- 
ing about the innocence of the little child. We watch 
with delight the marvelous development of the little 
mind keeping pace with the growth of bodily strength 
and dexterity. We are reluctant to see the day drawing 
near when the child must begin his long course of training 
in school. Sometimes we fail to recognize the fact that 
before school days come the child has already received a 
considerable part of his education; that the habits which 
will make or mar his future are often firmly implanted 
and in a fair way to become masters of the young 
life. An elaborate plan for the little child's training 
would probably be abandoned even if undertaken, since 
elaborate plans involve endless work. If, however, we 



Training the Little Child 101 

attempt no more than I have outlined in this chapter, 
we have some reasonable chance of success. Given good 
health, with regular bodily habits, as a physical founda- 
tion, the child will have had much done for him if we 
have begun to build the habits of sympathy, self-control, 
industry, and service which will purify and sweeten the 
family relations of later years and make the one-time 
child worthy himself to undertake the important task 
of home building. 

It is naturally a matter for regret that the teacher into 
whose hands the child comes first at school usually knows 
so little of the home training he has had or failed to have. 
Children whose parents have made little or no attempt 
to teach these fundamental qualities which we have 
had under discussion are sometimes forever handicapped 
unless the teacher can supply the deficiency. Children 
who have made a good beginning may lose much of 
what they have been taught unless the teacher recog- 
nizes and holds them to the ideal. The kindergarten 
or primary teacher needs to know the homes of her 
pupils; and the time is not far distant when the school 
will recognize the home as after all the first grade in 
school life. Then mothers will receive the inspiration 
of contact w r ith the teachers and their ideals, not alone 
when their children reach school age, but from the time 
the first child arrives in the home. The Sunday school 
has its " cradle roll." The day school may emulate 
its example. 



CHAPTER VII 
Teaching the Mechanics of Housekeeping 

GOING to school marks an epoch in every child's 
life. Hitherto, however wide or narrow the child's 
contact with the world has been, the mother has been, at 
least nominally and in most cases actually, the controlling 
power. Now she gives her child over for an increasingly 
large part of every day to outside influence. 

More and more we are coming to see that the evolution 
of a successful homemaker requires that the school as 
well as the home keep the homemaking ideal before it. 
And so the best schools of the country are doing. The 
greatest needs of the little girl's early school days would 
seem to be a definite understanding between teacher and 
mother of the share each should assume in the home- 
making training. This necessitates personal conferences 
or mothers' meetings, or both. 

The little girl of primary-school age points the way for 
both teacher and mother by her adaptation and imitation 
of home activities in her play. In primary grades girls 
are approaching the height of the doll interest, which 
Hall and others place at eight or nine years. A doll's 
house, therefore, may be made the source of almost 
infinite enjoyment and profit in these grades. Indeed 
it is hardly too much to say that no primary room is 
complete without one. Nor is there any reason why 
any school should remain without one, since its making 
is the simplest of processes. Four wooden boxes, of the 
same size, obtained probably from the grocer, the dry- 
goods merchant, or the local shoe dealer, will make a 

102 



Teaching the Mechanics of Housekeeping 



103 



most satisfactory house if placed in two tiers of two each, 
with the open sides toward the front. This gives four 
rooms, which may be furnished as kitchen, dining room, 
living room, and bedroom. Windows may be cut in 
the ends or back, if the boys of the school are sufficiently 
expert with tools or if outside assistance can be secured 
for an hour or so. 

The best results 
with the doll's 
house are obtained 
if the children are 
allowed to furnish 
it themselves, with 
the teacher's ad- 
vice and help, 
rather than to 
find it completely 
equipp ed and 
therefore merely a 
' ' plaything ' ' of the 
sort that children 
have less use for 
because they can 
do little with it. 
An empty house presents exciting possibilities, and per- 
haps for the first time these little girls look with seeing 
eyes at the home furnishings, for they have wall paper 
to select, curtains and rugs to make, and indeed no end 
of things to do. 

It is perhaps scarcely necessary to call to mind the 
educational advantages possible in the planning and 
making of bedding, draperies, table linen, towels, couches 
and pillows, window seats, and other furnishings, as well 
as in the ingenuity brought into play in evolving kitchen 




The little girl adapts and imitates home 
activities in play 



io4 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



utensils and in stocking the cupboards with the necessities 
for housekeeping. The free interchange of ideas should 
be encouraged, and the spirit of seeking the best fostered. 
The conspicuous results in this work are two: we 
secure the child's attention to details of housekeeping, 




i Making furniture for a doll's house affords educational advantages 
in emphasizing the details of housekeeping 

and we build up a foundation ideal of what housekeep- 
ing equipment should be. Children in poorly equipped 
homes may find the most practical of training in this 
way. My experience has been that teachers have only 
to begin this work in order to arouse enthusiasm in any 
class of little girls. Once begun, it carries itself along. 
There should be no compulsion in this work. Choice 
and not necessity must be the rule in all our training for 
homemaking. To compel a child's attention to that 
which she will later do voluntarily, if at all, will at the 
very outset defeat our purpose. 

The finest sort of cooperation arises in this work when 
parents are led to provide the little girl at home with a 



Teaching the Mechanics of Housekeeping 105 

doll's house fashioned like the one at school. Perhaps 
they may go a step farther and find space for a larger 
scheme of housekeeping, in the attic or elsewhere. 
Cooperation among the children means interchange of 
ideas, materials, and labor, most helpful to social ideals. 

From the furnishing of the doll's house it is easy to 
pass to plays involving the activities of home life. Chil- 
dren delight in sweeping, dusting, washing dishes, arrang- 
ing cupboards and pantries, and making beds in their 
miniature houses, and if their efforts are wisely directed, 
orderly habits easily begin to form. In all these varieties 
of work the children must be led to feel that there is a 
right way, and that only that way is good enough, even 
for play. 

The great result of all play housekeeping is the forma- 
tion of ideals. It is just as easy to learn at seven or eight 
the most efficient way of washing dishes as it is to defer 
that knowledge until years of inefficient work harden 
into inefficient habits. The teacher will find abundant 
and interesting studies in household efficiency in recently 
published books to inspire her guidance of the children's 
activity. 

The step from washing play dishes at school to washing 
real dishes at home is easily taken, and children are 
delighted to take it. Here again the school and home 
may — indeed must, for best results — work together. 
Some schools are giving school credit for home work 
along domestic lines. That there are complex elements 
entering into the successful working out of such a plan 
one must admit. A school giving credit for work it 
does not see may put a premium upon quantity rather 
than quality. The teacher who asks her little pupils to 
wash the home dishes according to school methods may 
encounter adverse comment from certain parents who are 



106 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

quick to resent outside "management." Nevertheless, 
home practice in accordance with school theory is the 
ideal of any cooperative education in the mechanics of 
housekeeping; therefore some scheme must be worked 
out whereby the girls will practice at home, and, having 
learned to do by doing, will continue to do in the families 
where their doing will be a help. 

Let us consider for a moment the present condition of 
the school-credit-for-home-work idea. Schemes are being 
worked out in various places, under one or the other of 
the following plans. 

Plan I (often known as the Massachusetts plan) . Each 
pupil, with the advice of his teacher and the consent of 
his parents, selects some one definite piece of work to do 
at home regularly, under direction of the school and with 
some study at school of the practical problems involved. 
School credit depends upon approval by the teacher on 
the occasion of a visit of inspection to the home. 

Plan II (sometimes called the Oregon plan). This is 
more directly concerned with the cultivation of a helpful 
spirit than with perfect technique or broad knowledge. 
No attempt is made to correlate home and school work. 
Credit is given merely for the fact that the dishes were 
washed, the table set, or the baby bathed, the fact being 
properly certified by the parent. Whether the work was 
acceptably done or not rests entirely with the parent. 
In the carrying out of the latter plan blanks are usually 
issued to be filled out and handed in once a week or once 
a month. Each task carries a certain value in school 
credit. 

That either of these plans possesses certain weaknesses 
doubtless even their makers would admit. But they are 
at least opening wedges. A plan might be worked out 
whereby little girls are taught one household task at a 







Teaching the Mechanics of Housekeeping 107 

time, through their play housekeeping, after which credit 
may be given for satisfactory performance of the task at 
home. Later another household duty may be taught, 
and put into practice, with credit, at home, thus building 
up a body of known duties for which the little house- 
helper has been duly trained. For its highest efficiency 
such a plan would require more than consent on the part 
of mothers. Its success would depend upon coopera- 
tive leadership and its value upon the acceptance, for 
school credit, of only that work done in conformity with 
school ideals. 

But at all events, whether school credit be given or not, 
the stimulus of interest in home tasks may be given 
strength by the teacher's wise suggestion, and thoughtful 
consideration of the matter in teachers' and mothers' 
meetings will insure cooperation of the most helpful sort. 
The tactful teacher will find ways to suggest to mothers 
that children be held up at home to the ideals of efficiency 
she has been at pains to put before them at school. 

The suggestion has been recently made by several 
thoughtful educators that the noon hour, in schools where 
children do not go home for dinner, be made use of for the 
simplest of cooking lessons. The children who at seven 
are quite content to play house soon pass into the stage 
where they wish to see results from their work. They 
want to "make things," real things, that they or some one 
can use. Children of nine or ten can learn to cook cereals 
and eggs in various ways, to make cocoa, and to prepare 
other simple dishes. Their pride and delight in these 
accomplishments are intense. These activities are equally 
suited to the small rural school and to the consolidated 
schools which are happily taking the place of the one-room 
buildings. In both, the teacher may find the lunch hour 
a real educational force if it is used aright. If the teacher 



io8 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



allows and guides these efforts in the schoolroom, she 
must keep in mind her "ideal of efficiency." Accurate 
measurements, logical processes, elimination of awkward 
and unnecessary movements, care in following directions, 
neatness, and precision are the real lessons to be learned. 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A school garden. The possibilities for good through school- garden 
work are numberless 

School gardens are perhaps already too familiar to 
require more than a word. Their possibilities for good 
are numberless. In them many children get their first 
insight into the joys of making things grow and are led 
by this joy to undertake the care of a home garden and to 
beautify the home surroundings as they had never thought 
of doing before. School-garden work leads to beautify- 
ing the school grounds, with resulting pride and interest 
in the school. 

Accompanying the activities we have suggested, 
teachers will find a wide field in attractive stories of help- 
ful cooperative home life. Extracts from many of Miss 



Teaching the Mechanics of Housekeeping 109 

Alcott's stories, the Cratchits' Christmas dinner from 
Dickens' Christmas Carol, and many other delightful 
glimpses of home life can be read, or, better, dramatized, 
with little effort and with good results. 

It may seem that the homemaking training here 
suggested for younger children is too desultory, too slight, 
in fact, to affect the situation much. But let us consider. 
Homemaking is an art, coming more and more to be based 
on a foundation of science. For it is undoubtedly true 
that, while the pessimists are telling us that the home 
is doomed, we who are optimists see coming toward us 
a great wave of homemaking knowledge which if seized 
upon will put the homemaker's art upon a surer foundation 
than it has ever been. 

The elements of housekeeping are the ABC of home- 
making. We shall do well to teach them early, incidentally, 
and with no undue exaggeration of their place in the Scheme 
of living. We simply familiarize the girl, by long and 
quiet contact, with the tools of the homemaker, for future 
scientific use, just as we teach the multiplication facts 
for later use in the science of mathematics. 

A definite list of the simple homemaking tasks suitable 
for little girls to undertake may not be out of place here : 

1. Setting the table. (A card list of table necessities is useful. 
Such a list may be given each little girl when she undertakes 
home practice work.) 

2. Clearing the table. 

3. Washing the dishes. 

4. Sweeping the kitchen. Sweeping the piazza. 

5. Dusting. 

6. Making beds and caring for bedrooms. 

7. Arranging her own bureau drawers and closets. 

8. Simple cooking. 

9. Hemming towels and table linen. 
10. Ironing handkerchiefs and napkins. 



no Vocational Guidance for Girls 

As the child grows older, methods of teaching grow 
increasingly direct. Even here we shall perhaps not talk 
a great deal about "preparing for homemaking.' ' But 
we shall see that the tools grow increasingly familiar, and 
that ideals once taught are retained and added to. We 
shall see that our science, our mathematics, our art, all 
contribute to the acquirement of homemaking knowledge. 
We shall give a practical turn to these more or less abstract 
subjects. 

Sewing and cooking classes are by this time a recognized 
part of grammar-school courses in many city schools. 
That they are not so firmly intrenched in the country 
schools is due usually to difficulties in the way of securing 
equipment and to the already crowded condition of the 
school program. The ideal remedy is the substitution of 
the consolidated school with its domestic science room and 
its specially trained teacher for the scattered one-room 
buildings. Wherever the consolidated school has come, 
it has been enthusiastically received and supported. No 
one wishes to go back to the old way. But in many 
localities the consolidated school has not come and cannot 
be immediately looked for; and in these places the need 
of the homemaking work is just as great. The teacher 
must find the way to give these girls what they need. If 
no other way presents itself, the teacher will do well to 
ask the help of the mothers of the neighborhood. Perhaps 
one who is an expert needlewoman will give an hour or 
two a week in the school or at her own home to carrying 
out the sewing course which the teacher cannot crowd 
into her own already overcrowded program. Perhaps 
another will do the same for the cooking, making her own 
kitchen for one afternoon a week an annex of the school. 
It is important, however, when such arrangements are 
made that they be recognized as school work, and if 



Teaching the Mechanics of Housekeeping 1 1 1 

possible the courses followed should be planned and 
supervised by the regular teacher of the school. Thus 
only can they be held to standardized accomplishment. 

The inadequacy of the " one-portion' ' method of teaching 
girls to cook has aroused serious thought, and remedies of 
various sorts have been applied. You know, perhaps, 
the story of the Chicago cooking-school student who 
"had to make seven omelets in succession at home last 
night" because one egg would not make enough omelet for 
the family. The first remedy tried was cooking for the 
school lunch room. This was, however, usually going 
from one extreme to the other, since the lunch room is as 
a rule maintained only in large schools. "Institutional 
cooking," some one calls it. Instead of one egg-cooking, 
it became one-hundred-egg cooking, and the difficulty of 
the average student in adapting school methods to family 
use was not by any means at an end. 

The Central High School of Newark, New Jersey, has 
solved its problem by putting its girls to work, not at 
the task of providing the sandwiches, soups, and other 
luncheon dishes for its large lunch room, but at providing 
"family dinners" at twenty-five cents a plate for the 
faculty of the school. Other schools follow similar plans. 

The grammar-school girls of Leominster, Massachusetts, 
serve luncheon to a limited number every day at their 
domestic science house. Here the girls do the marketing, 
cook and serve the meal, and keep the various rooms of 
the house in order. In Montclair, New Jersey, work of 
this same sort is done. In each of these cases the cooking 
is done as it would have to be in the home, not for one 
person, nor for hundreds, but for approximately a family- 
sized group. 

Sewing courses also grow more and more practical. 
In some schools the girls make their own graduating 



112 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



dresses as a final test of their ability. Courses are definite, 
and girls completing them will have definite knowledge of 




Teachers 1 luncheon cooked and served by pupils at the Clinton 

Kelly School, Portland, Oregon. Other schools have adopted 

similar plans for teaching girls how to cook 

everyday processes of hand sewing. The schools which 
add to their hand-sewing courses well-planned practice in 
the use of the sewing machine are further adding to the 
accomplishment of their girls. Those which go farther 
still and teach garment planning and making may consider 
their sewing courses fairly complete. 

The formation of ideals must go hand in hand with 
practice in manual processes. The girl must learn to 
know good work when she sees it, to know a properly 
constructed garment from one carelessly put together, 
and to value good work and construction. 

Time was when domestic science meant sewing and 
cooking, and these alone. That time, however, is past. 



Teaching the Mechanics of Housekeeping 



113 



The care of a house is practically taught in many schools 
throughout the country by the maintenance of a model 
apartment in or near the school building. In Public 
School No. 7, New York City, grammar-school girls, 
many of whom are of foreign parentage and tradition, 
are thus introduced to the American ideal of living. The 
school is thus establishing standards of equipment, of 
food, of service, of comfortable living, that tend to 
Americanize quite as much as the establishment of 
standards of speech, of business methods, or of civic 
duties. The work done in this school is typical of that 
prevailing in hundreds of towns and cities. 

The question arises: How much of her housekeeping 
training should a girl receive before entering upon her 
high-school course? After careful consideration it seems 



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A girls 1 sewing class. Work in sewing offers unlimited 
possibilities 

wise to urge that the greater part of the practical house- 
hold work be taught during the period from eleven to 



ii4 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

fourteen. This does not imply that homemaking training 
should cease at fourteen, but rather that after that age 
attention shall be centered upon the more difficult aspects 
of the subject — upon "household economics" rather than 
the skillful doing of household tasks. 

In view, however, of the fact that the majority of girls 
never reach the high school, every bit of household science 
which they can grasp should be given them in the elemen- 
tary school. Knowing how to do is only part of the 
housekeeper's work. Knowing what and when to do is 
quite as important. Elementary study of food values is 
quite as comprehensible as elementary algebra. Home 
sanitation and decoration are no harder to understand 
than commercial geography. The principles of infant 
feeding and care may be grasped by any girl who can 
successfully study civil government or grammar. 

Shall we then crowd out commercial geography or 
government or grammar to make room for these home- 
making studies? Not necessarily, although, if it came to 
a choice, much might be said \ov the practical studies in 
learning to live. Fortunately it need not come to a 
choice. There is room for both. We must, however, learn 
to adapt existing courses to the requirements of girls. 

There is arithmetic, for instance. Most of us have 
already learned to skip judiciously the pages in the text- 
book which deal with compound proportion, averaging pay- 
ments, partial payments, and cube root. Now we must 
learn to insert the keeping of household accounts; the 
study of apportioning incomes; the scientific spending of 
a dollar in food or clothing value; the relative advantage 
of cash or credit systems of paying the running expenses 
of a home; the dangers of the "easy-payment plan"; the 
cost of running an automobile; comparison with the 
upkeep of a horse and wagon ; comparison of the two from 



Teachin g th e ^ lech a ; 1 ics of Housekeepin g 115 




Courtesy of L. A. Alderman 

A model school home where all the practical details of house- 
keeping are taught 




A domestic scienc 



class at work in the model school home 
shown above 



1 1 6 1 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

the point of view of their usefulness to a family; mortgag- 
ing homes, what it means, and what it costs to borrow; 
when borrowing is justified; the accumulation of interest 
in a savings account; the comparative financial advantage 
of renting and owning a home; the cost of building houses 
of various sorts; the cost of securing, under varying con- 
ditions, a water supply in the country home; and other 
locally important problems. We already have * 'applied 
science" in our courses, and we are making a strenuous 
effort to apply arithmetic; but we have not usually tried 
to apply it to the education of the prospective ho'memaker. 

Take the one question of the "installment plan." 
Where, if not in the public school, can we fight the menace 
offered to the inexperienced young people of the land by 
this method of doing business? And where in the public 
school if not in the arithmetic class? Consider the 
possibility of lives spent in paying for shoes and hats 
already worn out, of furniture double-priced because 
payment is to be on the "easy plan," of families always 
in debt, with wages mortgaged for months in advance. 
The pure science of mathematics will be of little avail 
in fighting this possibility, but "applied arithmetic" can 
be a most effective weapon. 

In our geography classes we may find time for the 
study of food and clothing products, of their sources, 
their comparative usefulness, and their cost. We may 
learn whether it is best to buy American-made macaroni 
or the imported variety ; whether French silks and gloves 
are superior to those made in America; what "shoddy " is, 
what we may expect from it if we buy it, how much it is 
worth in comparison with long-wool fabrics, how to know 
whether shoddy is being offered us when we buy. Count- 
less other matters concerning the markets and products 
o*: the world will repay the same sort of treatment. 



Teaching the Mechanics of Housekeeping i i 7 




One of the class exercises in the model school home shown 
on page 115 




The correct serving of meals forms part of the class work in 
this same home 



n8 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Food questions are opened up by study of our meat, 
vegetable, and fruit supply. Every town may make 
this a personal and immediate problem. From whom 
did Mr. Blank, the local grocer, obtain his canned toma- 
toes? It is sometimes possible to follow up those canned 
tomatoes to their source. In one investigation of this 
sort they were found to have passed through six hands. 
The arithmetic class may pass upon the question of profits 
and comparative cost between this and the "producer- 
to-consumer" method. 

The art work of the schools may also contribute gener- 
ously to the body of homemaking knowledge. For the 
average girl the designing and making of Christmas cards 
and book covers, or even the prolonged study of great 
paintings, is a less productive use of time than the design- 
ing of cushion covers, curtains, bureau scarfs, or candle 
shades. In a certain town in New England considerable 
effort was expended in bringing about the introduction 
of art work in the schools a few years ago. A normal- 
school art graduate took charge of the work. It has 
now been abandoned because "the children took so little 
interest." And really, if you knew the conditions, you 
could not blame them. They studied art and copied 
art and tried to cultivate an artistic sense in ways as 
remote from their daily lives as could apparently be con- 
trived. And the pity of it all is that here were girls 
whose homes, whose personal dress, were crying out for 
the application of art; whose artistic sense was growing 
or failing to grow according as their individual condi- 
tions would allow; and the public school has passed its 
opportunity by. 

Art, as applied to school work, is divided usually into 
appreciative and creative work. We place before chil- 
dren the best in picture and sculpture and music. Why 



Teaching the Mechanics of Housekeeping 119 

do we not teach them also the foundation principles of 
good taste in matters less remote from the lives of many 
of them? Why not teach the girl something of artistic 
color combination? Why not apply the test of art to 
the lines of woman's attire? Why not study the contour 
of heads and styles of hairdressing? 

Happily, in these days, these things also are being done. 
We have " manual arts" rooms and teachers by whose 
aid girls are taught to use the principles of design they 
study in their everyday planning of everyday things. A 
visitor to the Central School of Auburn, Washington, 
reports interesting work going on in such a room. On 
the blackboard was written: 

The general aim of design work — order and beauty. 
The three principles governing design are: 

B alance — Harmony — Rhythm. 
Balance: opposition of equal forms. 

Rhythm: movement in direction — joint action — motion. 
Harmony: similarity. 

In the room were girls doing various sorts of work — 
coloring designs on fabrics for curtains and pillow covers; 
making original designs for crocheted lace; hemstitching 
draperies; preparing color material for a primary room; 
while on a table in the center of the room were many 
finished articles, made by the girls and carrying out their 
principles of design — "not one of which," says the visi- 
tor, "but would serve a useful purpose in home or office." 

House building, interior decorating, and furnishing are 
all worthy of serious attention in the art course. Sim- 
plicity, harmony, and suitability may well be taught as 
the principles of good taste. Girls must learn these 
principles somewhere to make the most of their homes 
by and by. And again the public school, and probably 
the elementary school, must do the work. 



120 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Physiology and hygiene are already contributing to 
the knowledge which makes for human betterment, but 
they also can be made to contribute much more than they 
have sometimes done. The physiology of infancy must 
be widely and insistently taught. 

With proper education she [the young mother] would know 
the meaning of the words food and sleep; she would know 
something of their overwhelming importance upon the future 
being and career of her child, who in his turn is to be one of 
the world's citizens with full capacity for good or evil. Know- 
ing what were normal functions, she would be able to recognize 
and guard against deviations from them. No day would pass 
in which she would not find opportunity to exercise self-restraint, 
keen observation and sensible knowledge in furthering the 
normal and healthful evolution of her child. 1 

The " little mother" classes in settlement houses, in 
community social centers, and in some public schools are 
doing excellent work in beginning this knowledge of 
infancy. No elementary school can really afford to miss 
the opportunity such work holds out. Have we any 
right to let a girl approach the care of her child with less 
than the best that modern science can offer in this most 
important and exacting work of her life? If not, it is 
again the public school which alone can be depended 
upon to do the work, and we must get at least the begin- 
ning of it done before the girl escapes us at the close of 
her elementary-school course. 

If you are impatient with a program which presupposes 
that practically all women will be homemakers and 
mothers, either trained or otherwise, let me remind you 
that the majority of women do marry, that most of 
these and many of the unmarried do become homemakers, 
and that it will be far safer for society to train the few — 

1 Oppcnheim. 



Teaching the Mechanics of Housekeeping 121 

less than 10 per cent — who never enter the career than 
to pursue the economically wasteful plan of assuming 
educationally that no women will be homemakers, or 
that if they are they can successfully undertake the 
most complicated, difficult, and most important profession 
open to women with no preparation at all, or with only 
what they have unconsciously absorbed at home in the 
brief pauses of the education which did not educate them 
for life. 

The education for homemaking will never lose sight 
of the fact that girls must really be prepared for a double 
vocation, since it is a question whether or not they will 
become homemakers, and they must at all events be 
prepared for the years intervening between school and 
home. On the contrary, the education which prepares 
the homemaker will exercise special care in training for 
those intervening years, or for life work if it should prove 
to be such. Of all distinctly vocational training, it is 
only fair, however, that the homemaking training should 
come first, as a foundation for all later work. Whether 
the girl thus trained ever presides over a home of her own 
or not, the training will have made her a broader woman 
and a better worker, with a finer understanding of the 
universal business of her sex. 



CHAPTER VIII 
The Girl's Inner Life 

WHILE we are occupied in teaching the girl the 
"ways and means" by which she is later to 
carry on the business of homemaking, we must not 
overlook the fact that, although ways and means are 
vitally necessary, it is after all the spirit of the girl which 
will supply the motive power to make the home machinery 
run. With this in view we must so plan the girl's train- 
ing as to secure not only the concrete knowledge of doing 
things, but also the more abstract qualities which will 
equip her for her work. 

False ideals and ignorance of housekeeping processes 
are responsible for thousands of homekeeping failures; 
but lack of fairness, of good temper, patience, humor, 
courage, courtesy, stability, perseverance, and initiative 
must be held accountable for thousands more. For these 
qualities, then, the girl must be definitely and pains- 
takingly trained. In other words, we must work for the 
highest type of woman, spiritually as well as industrially. 

It may seem that definite instruction in such abstract 
qualities as good temper or stability or fairness is difficult 
or perhaps impossible to secure. Since, however, all the 
girl's intercourse with her kind affords daily opportunity 
for practice of these qualities, instruction may easily 
accompany and become a part of her daily life. The lack 
of these qualities handicaps the girl even in her school 
life and shows there plainly the handicap that, unless 
help is given her, she will suffer for life. 

Her school work offers ample opportunity for the 
cultivation of patience and perseverance. Teachers must 

122 



The GirVs Inner Life 



123 



combat vigorously the "give-up" spirit, and the trouble- 
some " changing her mind" which leads the girl along a 
straight path from "trying another" essay subject or 
embroidery stitch as soon as difficulties present themselves 
to trying another husband when the first domestic cloud 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Play hours as well as work hours are invaluable in teaching the 
girl the difficult art of getting on with the world 

arises. Play hours as well as work hours are invaluable 
in teaching the girl the difficult art of getting along with 
the world. The educational value of games is largely 
found in their social training. Experience teaches that 
children require long and patient instruction to enable 
them to play games. They have to learn fairness, 
courtesy, good temper; honesty, kindness, sympathy. 
They have to learn to be good losers and to consider the 
fun of playing a better end than winning the game. 

Games must be carefully distinguished from the more 
general term play. All play not solitary has recognized 



124 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

social value; games, because the idea of contest is 
involved, have a special value of their own. Close obser- 
vation of young children in their games, especially when 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Hunter High School girls playing hockey in Central Park, New York. 

The educational value of games lies in the fact that they teach fair 

play , self-control, and proper consideration of others 

unsupervised, shows us self supreme. According to tem- 
perament, the child either pushes his way savagely to the 
goal or furtively seeks to win by cunning and craft. He 
must win, regardless of the process. How many of these 
unsupervised games end in "I sha'n't play," in angry 
bursts of tears, or even in blows! How many fail upon 
close scrutiny to show some less assertive child, who never 
wins, who is never "chosen," who might better not be 
playing at all than never to "have his turn"! 

During the individualistic period games must be for the 
satisfaction of individualistic desires. Team work must 
await a later development of child nature. But while 
each child may play to win, his future welfare demands 
that his efforts be in harmony with certain principles. 



The Girls Liner Life 



125 



1. He must respect the rules of the game. 

2. He must "play fair." 

3. He must control anger, jealousy, boastfulness, and 
other of the more elemental emotions. 

4. He must consider the handicaps suffered by some 
players, and see that they get a "square deal." 

Girls' games and boys' games at this period happily 
show little differentiation. Almost any game not pre- 
judicial to health serves to call into action the moral 
forces we strive to cultivate. The game to a certain 
extent typifies the larger life — the life of effort, contest, 
striving to win. Self-control and proper consideration of 
others in the one must serve as a help in fitting for the 
other. 

Teachers are often inclined to overlook or undervalue 
the training of girls in games. The fact is that girls 




Courtesy of L. A. Alderman 

Drill work as well as games is beneficial to health and also 
teaches self-control 

especially need this training as the woman's sphere in 
present-day life is widening. Men have always had con- 
tact with the world. Women have in times past had to 



126 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

content themselves with a single interest involving con- 
test — the social game. 

How far we may safely go in utilizing the game element 
— that is, the contest or competition element — in school 
work is a question for thought. The "rules of the game ' ' 
are less easy to enforce here; jealousies are harder to 
control; handicaps are more in evidence and less easy 
to make allowance for in contests; the discouragement of 
failure may have more serious results. The mere fact 
of class grouping involves a natural competition, health- 
ful and beneficial and wisely preparatory for future living. 
More emphasis than this upon rivalry may produce 
feverish and unhealthful conditions, far removed from the 
mental poise we desire for our girls. The school can give 
the girl few things finer than the ability to attack work 
quietly and yet with determination and a sense of power 
to meet and overcome obstacles. 

The school and the playground form the growing girl's 
community life. In them she must learn to practice 
community virtues, to shun community evils, and to 
accept community responsibilities. For her the school 
and the playground are society. Here she will take her 
first lessons in the pride of possessions, in the prestige 
accompanying them, in the struggle for social suprem- 
acy, in doubtful ideals brought from all sorts of doubtful 
sources. Here she will find exaggerated notions of 
"style" and its value, impure English, whispered unclean- 
ness in regard to sex matters, and surreptitious reading 
of forbidden books. Here also she will find worthier 
examples — clean, pure thought, honesty and fair dealing, 
pride of achievement rather than of externals, fine ideals 
exemplified in the best homes. And no finer or more 
delicate task lies before teacher and mother than the 
guidance of the girl in her choice. 



The GirVs Inner Life 



127 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 



A school playground. The school and the playground form the 
growing girl's community life 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 



A model playground. The model playgrounds in the parks are 
doing much to aid the playground movement 



128 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Going to school is rightly considered an epoch in the 
child's life. No longer confined to the narrow circle of 
home and family friends, the child may lose all the tiny 
beginnings of desired virtues in this larger life. Or, on 
the contrary, when the school recognizes and continues 
home training, or supplies what has not been given, these 
foundation virtues may be so applied to the old problems 
in new places as to form a foundation for the life conduct 
of the girl and the woman that is to be. 

Take the question of sex knowledge, so widely agitated 
of late. We cannot guard our girls against contact with 
some who will exert a harmful influence. We can only 
forearm them by natural, gradual information on this 
subject as their young minds reach out for knowledge, so 
that sex knowledge comes, as other knowledge comes, 
without solemnity or sentimentality on the one hand or 
undue mystery and a hint of shame on the other. No 
course in sex hygiene can take the place of this early 
gradual teaching, answering each question as it comes, in 
a perfectly natural way, and with due regard for the 
child's wonder at all of nature's marvelous processes. 
The little girl who knows presents no possibilities to the 
perverted mind which seeks to astonish and excite her. 
And if she knows because "my mother told me,"" the 
guard is as nearly perfect as can be devised. 

Upon this foundation the formal course in sex hygiene 
may be built. Such a course will then be a scientific 
summing up, with application to personal ideals and 
requirements. It can easily, safely, and wisely be 
deferred until the adolescent period. 

Teachers and mothers can find scarcely any field more 
worthy of their thoughtful concentration than the culti- 
vation of good temper in the girls under their care. The 
number of marriages rendered failures, the number of 






The GirVs Inner Life 129 

homes totally wrecked, by sulking or nagging or out- 
bursts of ill-temper, can probably not be estimated. 
Neither can we count the number of innocent people in 
homes not apparently wrecked whose lives are rendered 
more or less unhappy by association with the woman of 
uncertain temper. Think of the families in which some 
undesirable trait of this sort seems to pass from genera- 
tion to generation, accepted by each member calmly as 
an inheritance not to be thrown off. "It's my disposi- 
tion," one will tell you with a sigh. " Mother was just 
the same." Surely the time to combat these undesirable 
traits is in childhood, and probably the first step is for 
the mother, who looks back to her mother as "being just 
the same," to stop talking or thinking about inherited 
traits and at least to present an outward show of good 
temper for the child to see. 

Then there is the teacher, who is under a strain and 
who finds annoyances in every hour which tend to destroy 
her equanimity. Her serenity, if she can accomplish it, 
will prove an excellent example. And little by little the 
mother and the teacher who have accomplished self- 
control for themselves may teach self-control and the 
beauties of good temper to the little girls who live in the 
atmosphere they create. 






CHAPTER IX 
The Adolescent Girl 

ADOLESCENCE, the critical period of the train- 
ing of the boy and girl, presents a complexity of 
problems before which parents and teachers alike are 
often at a loss. 

The adolescent period, the gro wing-up stage of the 
girl's life, is physically the time of rapid and important 
bodily changes. New cells, new tissue, new glands, are 
forming. New functions are being established. The 
whole nervous system is keyed to higher pitch than at 
any previous time. Excessive drain upon body or nerve 
force at this time must mean depletion either now or in 
the years of maturity. 

But, on the other hand, the keynote of the girl's adoles- 
cent mental life is awakening. Her whole nature calls 
out for a larger, fuller, more intense life. Home, school, 
society, dress, all take on new aspects under the trans- 
forming power of the new sex life stirring and perfecting 
itself within. The world is beckoning to the emerging 
woman, and her every instinct leads her to follow the 
beckoning hand. 

Now, if ever, the girl needs the influence and guidance 
of some wise and sympathetic woman friend. It may 
be — let us hope it is — her mother; or, failing that, her 
teacher; or, better than either alone, both mother and 
teacher working in sympathetic harmony. 

The first care demanded for the maturing girl is the 
safeguarding of her health. School demands at this 
age are likely to be excessive under existing systems of 

130 



The Adolescent Girl 



131 



instruction. In many ways the secondary school, in 
which we may assume our adolescent girl to be, merits the 
criticism constantly made, that it works its pupils too hard 
or, perhaps more accurately, that it works them too long. 
Nothing but the closest cooperation between parents 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Camp Fire Girls. Outdoor life is one of the best means of 
safeguarding the girl's health 

and teachers can afford either of them the necessary 
data for working out this problem. It can never be 
anything but an individual problem, since girls will 
always differ whether school courses do so or not, and 
adjustment of one to the other must be made every time 
the combination is effected. Some schools content them- 
selves with asking for a record of time spent on school 
work at home. Many parents merely acquiesce in the 
girl's statement that she does or doesn't have to study 
to-night, and the matter rests. Other schools and other 



132 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

parents go into the question with more or less detail, but 
usually quite independently of each other in the investi- 
gation. It is only very recently that anything like ade- 
quate knowledge of pupils has begun to be gathered and 
recorded to throw light upon the home-study question. 

School girls naturally divide into fairly well-defined 
classes: the girl who is overanxious or overconscientious 
about her work, the girl who intends to comply with rules 
but has no special anxiety about results, and the girl who 
habitually takes chances in evading the preparation of 
lessons. How many parents know at all definitely to 
which class their girl belongs? 

The same girls may be classified again with regard to 
activities outside the school. They may help at home 
much or little or not at all. They may have absorbing 
social interests or practically none. They may be in 
normal health or may already be nervous wrecks from 
causes over which the school has no control. 

There is no question about the value of definite informa- 
tion on all of these points gathered by home and school 
acting together for the best understanding of the child. 
The modern physician keeps a carefully tabulated record 
of his patient's history and condition. The school should 
do the same thing and should prescribe with due reference 
to such record. 

It frequently happens, however, that the schoolgirl's 
health is menaced less by her hours of school work than 
by misuse of the remaining portion of the twenty-four 
hours. No mother has a right to accuse the school of 
breaking down her daughter's health unless she is duly 
careful that the girl has a proper amount of sleep, exercise 
in the open air, and hygienic clothing, and that her life 
outside the school is not of the sort that we describe in 
these days as " strenuous." 



The Adolescent Girl 



133 



It is this strenuous life which our girls must be taught 
to avoid. Any daily or weekly program which is crowded 
with activities is a dangerous program for developing 
girlhood. The very atmosphere of many modern homes 
is charged with the spirit of haste, and parents scarcely 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

A mountain camp. Good health is conserved by outdoor games 
and exercise 

realize that the daughter's time is too full, because their 
own is too full also. They have no time to stop and realize 
anything. A quiet home is an essential help in pre- 
serving a girl's health and well-being. 

It need scarcely be said that the children of a family 
should be troubled as little as possible with the worries 
of their elders. Parents are often unaware how much of 
the family burden their sons and daughters are secretly 
bearing, or how long sometimes they continue to struggle 
under the burden after it has mercifully slipped from 
father's or mother's shoulders. 



134 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Good health means buoyancy, a springing to meet the 
future with a tingle of joy in facing the unknown. The 
adolescent period is essentially an unfolding time, in 
which probably for the first time choice seems to pre- 
sent itself in a large way in ordering the girl's life. In 
school she is confronted with a choice of studies or of 
courses. To make these choices she must look farther 
ahead and ask herself many questions as to the future. 
What is she to be ? Nor is she loath to face this question. 
Some of the very happiest of the girl's dreams at this 
time are concerned with that problematical future. There 
was a day when girls dreamed only of husbands, children, 
and homes. Then, as the pendulum swung, they dreamed 
of careers, a hand in the " world's work." Now they 
dream of either or both, or they halt confused by the wide 
ov ook. But of one thing we may be sure — our girl is 
dreaming, and she seldom tells her dreams. 

It is during this period in a girl's life that she is most 
likely to chafe at restraint, to picture a wonderful life 
outside her home environment, and to demand the oppor- 
tunity to make her own choice. As she goes on through 
high school, she longs more and more for "freedom," 
quite unconscious of the fact that what seems freedom 
in her elders is, in reality, often farthest removed from 
that elusive condition. Her imagination is taking wild 
flights in these days. Sometimes we catch fleeting 
glimpses of its often disordered fancies, although oftener 
we see only the most docile of exteriors standing guard 
over an inner self of which we do not dream. 

The wise mother and the wise teacher are they whose 
adolescent memories, longings, misapprehensions, and 
mistakes are not forgotten, but are being sympathetically 
and understandingly searched for light in guiding the 
girls whose guardians they are. They recognize once 



The Adolescent Girl 



135 



and for all that normal girls are filled with what seem 
abnormal notions, desires, and ideals. They recall how 
little they used to know of life, and the pitfalls they barely 
escaped, if they did escape. Thus only can they keep 
close to the girl in spirit and help her as they once needed 




A study room. The life of the adolescent girl is by no means 
bounded by the schoolroom walls 

help. They respect her longing for freedom of choice 
and they teach her how to choose. It is of little use to 
attempt to clip the wings of the girl's imagination, how- 
ever riotous. The wings are safely hidden from our 
profaning touch. Instead we must teach her to dream 
true dreams and to choose real things rather than shams. 
At this time the girl's life often seems to the casual 
observer to be bounded by her schoolroom walls. As a 
matter of fact, however, school work appeals to her much 
less than it has probably done earlier or than it will do in 
her college days. Dress is becoming an absorbing subject. 
10 



136 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

"The boys," however little you may think it, are seldom 
far from her thoughts. Intimate friendship with another 
adolescent girl perhaps affords an outlet, beneficial or 
otherwise, for the crowding life which is too precious to 
bear the unsympathetic touch of the world of her elders. 
Or perhaps the girl becomes solitary in her habits, living 
in a world of romance found in books or in her own 
dreams, impatient with the world about her, feeling sure 
she is ' 'misunderstood.' ' 

What can home, school, and society in general do for 
the adolescent girl, that her awakening may be sweet and 
sane, that her future usefulness may not be impaired or 
her life embittered by wrong choice at the brink of woman- 
hood? 

Any wise plan for the training of girls "in their teens" 
must include provision for: 

1. Outdoor play and exercise. In the country this is 
much more easily accomplished. City problems bearing 
on this question are among the most acute of all concern- 
ing boys and girls. 

2. Systematic attention to the work of the schoolroom. 
Thus the girl acquires habits of concentration and industry 
that she will need all her life. 

3. Some manual work in kitchen, garden, sewing room, 
or workshop. Here the girl's natural tastes and inclina- 
tion may be discovered and trained. 

4. Food for the imagination. Books, music, pictures, 
inspiring plays. The Campfire Girls' movement is valu- 
able in its imaginative aspect. 

5. Attention to dress. Laying the foundation for wise 
lifelong habits. 

6. Healthful social intercourse under the best conditions 
with boys and with other girls, both at home and at school. 
Croquet, tennis, skating, offer fine opportunities for such 



The Adolescent Girl 



137 



intercourse. "Parties," dancing, present more difficulties, 
but have their value under right conditions. Not all 
"fun" should include the boys. Athletic contests between 
girls do much to develop a neglected side of girl nature. 
7. Companionship with her mother, or some other 
woman of experience. Nothing can quite take the place 




A botanical laboratory in Portland, Oregon. Through systematic 

attention to the work of the schoolroom the girl acquires 

habits of concentration and industry 

of this. The girl is sailing out upon an uncharted sea. She 
needs the help of someone who has sailed that way before. 
8. Preparation for marriage and motherhood. Much 
that the girl should know can come to her through no 
other medium than that indicated in the preceding para- 
graph — confidential intercourse with the woman of 
mature years. For the sake of the girls who fail to find 
this woman elsewhere every school for adolescent girls 
should have on its faculty a woman who will "mother" 
its girls. 



138 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



9. Acquaintance with the lives of some of the great 
women of history, as well as of some who have lived 
inspiring lives in the girl's own country and time. A long 
list of such women might be made. 

10. Some unoccupied time. Our girl must not be per- 
mitted to acquire the bad habit of rushing through life. 











1- / * ^vVv \- 

HBBI 




i ^]£ 


H| 


HHHHSC 

^t"^., ,. > ■.:' : ' '■'■' l : _ 






y>- /J^ 




M.SW '"'^|'*??fii 


' '"*'. 





Photograph by Brown Bros. 

yl gwie/ retreat. Every girl needs some unoccupied time in order 
that she may not acquire the habit of rushing 

11. Study of vocations and avocations for women. 
Avocations — the work which serves as play — should be 
wisely studied, and some avocation adopted by every girl. 

Part of this training girls everywhere in this country 
may get if the opportunities open to them are seized. 
The proportion of purely mental work and of handwork 
will vary according to the locality in which the girl finds 
herself. In general, however, such matters receive more 
consideration than the more complex ones of direct 
social bearing. 



The Adolescent Girl 139 

How a girl shall dress, with whom and under what 
conditions she shall find her social life, what she shall 
know of herself, of woman in general, of the opposite sex, 
what her relations with her mother shall be — these things 
are more often than not left to chance or to the girl's 
untrained inclination. 

The dress question rests fundamentally upon the 
personal question, What do clothes mean to the girl? 
Behind that we usually find what clothes mean to her 
mother, to her teachers, to the women who have a part 
in her social life. Instinct teaches the girl to adorn her 
person. Environment is largely responsible for the sort 
of adornment she will choose. To bring the matter at 
once to a practical basis, what standards shall we set up 
for our girls to see, to admire, and to adopt as their own? 

"Well dressed" may be interpreted to mean simply, 
or serviceably, or conspicuously, or becomingly, or 
fashionably, or cheaply, or appropriately, according to 
the standard of the person who uses the term. It would 
necessarily be impossible to establish a common standard 
for any considerable group of women, since individual 
conditions must govern individual choice. A wise standard 
for girls and their mothers, however, will conform to 
certain principles, even though the application of the 
principles be widely different. 

These principles may be expressed somewhat as follows : 

1 . Beauty in dress is expressed in line, color, and adapta- 
tion to personal appearance, not in expense. 

2. Fitness depends upon the occasion and upon the 
relation of cost to the wearer's income. 

3. Simplicity conduces to beauty, fitness, and to. ease 
of upkeep. 

4. Upkeep, including durability and cleansing possi- 
bilities, is as important a consideration in selecting clothes 



1 40 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

as in selecting buildings and automobiles. Freshness 
outranks elegance. 

5. Individuality should be the keynote of expression 
in dress. 

Conformity to the foregoing principles in establishing 
a personal standard will of necessity prevent slavish 
imitation and the striving to reach some other woman's 
standard which bears again and again such bitter fruit. 
The erroneous notion fostered by thousands of American 
women, that if you can only look like the women of some 
social set to which you aspire you are like them for all 
social purposes, is a fallacy, in spite of its general accept- 
ance. We might as well expect blue eyes, straight noses, 
or number three shoes to form the basis of a social group. 

The mother or the teacher who bases her instruction 
in this matter on the assumption that pretty clothes of 
necessity breed vanity and all its attendant evils is merely 
sowing the seed of her influence upon stony ground when 
once the girl discovers her belief. Nature is telling the 
girl to make herself beautiful. It is not only useless but 
wrong to set ourselves against this instinct. Instead we 
must show her what beauty in clothes means, and how to., 
attain it without paying for it more than she can afford, 
in money, in time, or in sacrifice of her spiritual self. 
The school does its share when it teaches the general 
theory of beauty, with practical illustration in study of 
line and color schemes. The individual teacher and the 
mother have to impart the far more delicate lessons 
concerning influence and cost — mental, moral, and 
spiritual — in other words, the psychology of clothes. 

Our girl must grow up fully cognizant of what her 
clothes cost. When she desires, as she doubtless will 
desire, silk petticoats, and an "up-to-date" hat, and high- 
heeled shoes, and an absurdly beruffled dress, and a 



The Adolescent Girl 141 

wonderful array of ribbons, she must discover what each 
and every one of these things costs and whether it is 
worth the price. The high heels sometimes cost health; 
the conspicuous dress may cost the good opinion or the 
admiration of those who value modesty above style; the 
silk petticoat may be bought at the cost of mother's or 
father's sacrifice of something needed far more; the 
trimming on the hat may have cost the life of a beautiful 
mother bird and the slow starvation of her nestlings. 
Nothing the girl wears costs money only. 

She must also learn that fine clothes are out of place on 
a girl whose body is not finely cared for; that money is 
better expended for quality than for show; and, most of 
all, that clothes are secondary matters, when all is said. 

Wisdom and sympathy and tact are never more needed 
than in this sort of teaching. The principles of good 
dressing cannot be laid down baldly and coldly, like rnathe- 
matical rules, for the guidance of a girl palpitating with 
youthful and beauty-loving instincts. The mother who 
says, merely, "Certainly not. You don't need them. I 
never had silk stockings when I was a girl," is failing to 
meet her obligations quite as much as the mother who 
allows her daughter to appear at school in a costume 
suited only to some formal evening function. There are 
mothers of each of these sorts. 

The wise mother whose daughter has developed a 
sudden scorn for the stockings she has worn contentedly 
enough hitherto does not dismiss the subject in the 
"certainly not" way, however kindly spoken. She treats 
her daughter's request seriously, asks a few questions, in 
the answers to which "the other girls" will probably figure 
largely, and talks it over. 

"Of course, there is the first cost to consider. The 
price of three or four pairs of silk stockings would give 



142 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

you a dozen pairs of fine cotton. Yes, I know there are 
cheaper silk ones to be had, but their quality is poor. We 
should scarcely want you to wear coarse, poorly made 
ones. And of course you know silk ones do not last so 
long. They are pretty, and pleasant to wear, and cool, 
I know. How would it do to have silk ones to wear with 
your new party dress, and keep on with the cotton ones 
for school? We don't want to be overdressed in business 
hours, you know. Then, it seems to me, it is a little hard 
on the really poor girls at school if the rest of you are 
inclined to overdress. They are so likely to get into the 
habit of spending their money for cheap imitations of 
what you other girls wear — or if they are too sensible for 
that they are probably unhappy because they have to 
look different. Wouldn't it be kinder not to wear expen- 
sive things to school at all?" 

The object is not so much to keep the girl from having 
unsuitable garments as to teach her to see all sides of 
the clothes question, to realize her reponsibilities, and to 
learn to choose wisely for herself. 

It is highly desirable that mothers keep up their own 
standards of dress as they approach middle life and their 
daughters enter the adolescent period. Some women even 
make the mistake of dressing shabbily that they may 
gown their daughters resplendently. They are educat- 
ing their daughters to a false standard and to a selfish life. 

Teachers also probably seldom realize how wide an 
influence they may exercise upon their adolescent girl 
pupils in the matter of dress. Many a girl forms her 
standard and her ideal from what her teacher wears. 
Teachers must accept their responsibility and make good 
use of the opportunities it gives them. 

It is approximately at the time of her awakening to 
the beautifying instinct that the girl begins to take a 



The Adolescent Girl 



i43 



special interest in social matters. Here again she needs 
wise guidance, and usually more guidance and less direc- 
tion than most girls get. The American mother is prone 
in social questions to trust her daughter too much, or 
not enough, and to train her very little. 

In many cases adolescent society centers about the 
school. There are the everyday walks and talks of the 
boys and girls, the games and meets and contests, with 
their attendant social features, the literary societies and 
debating clubs, the school parties and dances. The 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Skating offers fine opportunity for healthful social intercourse 

school thus comes to assume a considerable part in the 
boy's and girl's social training, much more than was the 
case twenty or even ten years ago; and the whole trend 
of educational movement in this matter is toward doing 
more even than it now does. 



144 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



In some cases schools have merely drifted into this 
social work, without definite aims and without conspicu- 
ously good results, just as some parents have drifted into 
acceptance of the situation, with little oversight and a 
comfortable shifting of responsibility. 

When this sort of school and this sort of parent happen 
to be the joint guardians of a girl's social training, it 





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Games form an important part of the adolescent girVs life 

usually happens that the girl discovers some things by a 
painful if not heartbreaking trial-and-error method, and 
other things she quite fails to discover at all. Most of 
all, she needs her mother at this time — a wise, interested, 
companionable mother, who knows much about what 
goes on at school parties and at school generally, but who 
never forces confidences and, indeed, who never needs 
to; an elder sister sort of mother, who helps. And she 
needs also teachers who supervise and chaperon social 
affairs with a full realization that social training is in 
progress and that lives are being made or marred. 



The Adolescent Girl 145 

There are schools and there are mothers who look upon 
every phase of school life as contributing to the educative 
process, and these find in the social affairs of the school 
their opportunities to teach some vital lessons. Some 
schools are lengthening the free time between periods, 
merely for the purpose of adding to the informal social 
intercourse between pupils. 

Wise teachers as well as wise mothers will see that the 
social phase of school life, especially in the evening, is 
not overdone. Not only health but future usefulness and 
happiness suffer if the girl "goes out" so much that going 
out becomes the rule and staying at home the exception. 
It is not usually, however, the social affairs of the school 
alone which cause the girl to develop the habit of too 
many evenings away from home. It is the school party 
plus the church social, plus the moving pictures, plus the 
girls' club, plus the theater, plus choir practice, plus the 
informal evening at her chum's, plus a dozen other 
dissipations, that in the course of a few years change a 
quiet, home-loving little schoolgirl into a gadding, over- 
wrought, uneasy woman. 

Unless one has tried it, it is perhaps hard to realize 
how difficult it is for an individual mother to regulate 
social custom in her community even for her own daughter 
without causing the girl unhappiness and possibly destroy- 
ing her delight in her home. No girl enjoys leaving the 
party at ten when "the other girls" stay until twelve. 
Xor does she enjoy declining invitations when the other 
girls all go. But what the individual mother finds 
difficult, community sentiment can easily accomplish. 
The woman's club or the mothers' club or the parent- 
teacher association, or better yet all three, may profitably 
discuss the question, and may set about the creation of 
the sentiment required. 



146 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Quite as important as ''How often shall she go?" is the 
question "With whom is she going?" There are two 
ways of approaching the problem here involved. One 
requires more knowledge for the girl herself, that she 
may better judge what constitutes a worthy companion. 
The other is reached by the better training of boys, 
that more of them may develop into the sort of young 
men with whom we may trust our daughters. 

Parents who take the time and trouble to acquaint 
themselves with the boys in their daughter's social circle 
will find themselves better able to aid the girl in her 
choice of friends. The very best place for this getting 
acquainted is the girl's own home, to which, therefore, 
young people should often be informally invited. Nor 
should parents neglect occasional opportunities to observe 
their daughter's friends in other environment — at the 
church social or supper, at entertainments, at school, or 
on the street. Fortunately the revolt against a dual 
standard of purity for men and women holds promise of 
a larger proportion of clean, controlled, trustworthy boys. 

It will never be quite safe, however, to trust either 
our boys or our girls to resist instincts implanted by 
nature and restrained only by the artificial barriers of 
society, unless we keep their imaginations busy, and 
unless we implant ideals of conduct high enough to make 
them desire self-control for ends which seem beautiful 
and good to themselves. The adolescent period is espe- 
cially favorable for the formation of ideals, and a high 
conception of love and marriage will probably prove the 
truest safeguard our boys and girls can have. 

The reading of the period is of special importance. 
At no other time of life will altruism, self-sacrifice, high 
ideals of honor and of love, make so strong an appeal as 
now. Adolescent reading must make the most of this 




The Adolescent Girl 147 

fact. Some of the great love stories of literature and 
biography should be read, especially one or two which 
involve the putting aside of desire at the call of a 
higher motive. At least one story involving the world-old 
theme of the betrayed woman — The Scarlet Letter, 
perhaps, or Adam Bede — should be " required reading" 
for every adolescent girl, and should after reading be 
the subject of thoughtful and loving discussion by the 
girl and her mother in one of the confidential chats which 
should be frequent between them. 

Girls must learn from their mothers and teachers to 
distrust the boy who shows any inclination to take 
liberties, and they must also learn that girls, consciously 
or more often otherwise, daily put temptation in the 
way of boys who desire to do right, and invite liberties 
from the other sort. Restraint, in dress, in carriage, in 
manners, and in conversation, must be made to seem right 
and desirable to the girl, for her own sake and no less for 
the good of the other sex. This of course means that 
teachers must set fine examples before the girl in their 
own dress and deportment. 

To counteract the dangerous tendencies which have 
become intensified by the wholesale breaking of social 
customs during the war, it is necessary that parents and 
teachers give very careful attention to the dress of girls 
and to the demeanor of boys and girls of the adolescent 
period. Many teachers are improperly dressed and set- 
ting the wrong example. Many parents are dressing 
carelessly and sending their girls to high school improp- 
erly dressed. The boys are tempted — yes, are forced 
— to observe the bodies of their girl classmates, in study- 
rooms, halls, laboratories, and on playgrounds. These 
girls who are immodestly dressed are not only exposing 
themselves to danger and inviting familiarities, but are 



148 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

tempting the boys to go wrong. Many of the tragedies 
in our schools can be traced to this source. 

To handle this very serious and very difficult problem 
it is necessary that all mothers of high-school boys and 
girls organize and cooperate with principals and teachers. 
The task is gigantic, for the customs and suggestions 
which are responsible for present-day conditions are 
many and permeate our magazines, books, moving 
pictures, dances, and nearly all social gatherings. 

Many superintendents, teachers, and parents have 
been very seriously studying these social and moral 
problems and making plans to start reforms at once in 
the public schools. The most practical method thus far 
presented appears to be the requirement of uniform dress 
for all girls in the upper grades and in high school. This 
custom is already established in some of our best private 
schools. Uniform dress has a very democratic training 
which commends it. It is less expensive than the present 
varied styles. It is practical, for it avoids discrimination 
which would lead to many private difficulties. 

The girl has now reached the time when her bits of 
knowledge of sex matters, gained gradually since the 
first stirrings of curiosity in her little girlhood, should be 
gathered, summarized, and given practical application 
to the mature life she will soon enter upon. 

Thoughtful investigation does not lead to the conclu- 
sion that girls need especially a detailed physiological 
presentation of the subject so much as a study of the 
psychological aspects of the sex life. Personal purity is 
primarily a matter of mind. 

Girls who all their lives have been familiar with the 
mystery of birth, who at puberty have been instructed 
in the delicacy of the sexual organs and processes and in 
the care they must exercise to bring them to normal 



The Adolescent Girl 149 

development, are now ready to be taught the vital 
necessity of subordinating the animal to the spiritual 
in the sex life. 

It may seem unwise and unnecessary to put before 
voung girls so dark and distressing a subject as the social 
evil. Yet I know of no way to combat this evil without 
teaching all girls what must be avoided. When girls 
realize that the social evil 

1. Rests upon a foundation of purely unrestrained 
animal instinct; 

2. That a single sexual misstep has ruined thousands 
upon thousands of girls' lives; 

3 . That ignorance or the one misstep has led thousands 
to a permanent life of shame; 

4. That such a life means, sooner or later, sorrow, 
impaired or destroyed health, disgrace, and early 
death to its woman victims; 

5. That the social evil destroys the efficiency and the 
moral worth of men; 

6. That it sets free deadly disease germs to permeate 
society, causing untold misery among the innocent, 

then, and not until then, can they be taught 

1. To recognize and fear animal instinct unrestrained 
by higher motive; 

2. To guard their own instincts; 

3. To hold men to a high standard of social purity 
and to help them attain it. 

Xor does this teaching necessitate morbid consideration 
of the subject. It will, in fact, in many cases .clear away 
the morbid curiosity and surreptitious seeking after 
information in which untaught girls indulge. Skillfully 
and delicately taught this knowledge as an important 
and serious part of woman's work, girls will be sweeter 



150 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

and more womanly for the knowledge of their responsi- 
bility to society and to their unborn offspring. 

Schools that attempt such a course for girls are find- 
ing their chief difficulty in discovering people properly 
endowed by nature and properly trained to teach it. 
To give such work into any but the wisest hands invites 
disaster. To make it a study of the physical basis of 
sexual life is disaster in itself. Service, through making 
one's self a pure member of society, and through helping 
others to keep the same standard — this must be the 
keynote of the teaching, an education toward social 
efficiency and social uplift. 



CHAPTER X 
The Girl's Work 

THE adolescent girl, already the product of a 
general training which has aimed at all-round 
development of body, mind, and spirit, is now ready for 
the specializing which shall place her in tune with the 
world of industry and help her to make for herself a 
permanent and useful place in society. Henceforward 
the girl's training must face her double possibilities. She 
must not be allowed to have an eye single to making an 
industrial place for herself; nor can those who educate 
her fail to see the double work she must do. 

Any consideration of the subject of girls' work outside 
the home or work in the home for financial return must 
begin with a general survey of. the field of industry, 
discovering what women have done and are doing, 
together with the effects of gainful occupation upon the 
character and efficiency of women. 

The United States Census reports for 1910 give the 
following figures: 

Y ear Number of Females Ten Years and Over 

Engaged in Gainful Occupations 

1880 2,647,157 

189O 4,005,532 

I900 5,319,397 

I9IO 8,075,772 

It is thus seen that gainful occupations for women have 
increased greatly in the thirty years covered by the report. 
At present 21.2 per cent of all females, or 23 . 4 of all over 
ten years of age, are engaged in work for wages. Further 

11 151 



152 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



tabulation brings out the fact that, whereas the age period 
from twenty-one to forty-four shows the largest per- 
centage of men employed in gainful work, women show 
the largest proportion of their numbers so employed 
during the age period from sixteen to twenty. Evidently 
the girls are at work. The figures follow: 

Males Ten Years and Over 

Age Period Per Cent 

IO-13 16.6 



14-15 41.4 

l6-20 79. 2 

21-44 96.7 

45 and over 85.9 



Females Ten Years and Over 
Age Period Per Cent 

IO-13 8.0 

14-15 I9- 8 

l6-20 399 

21-44 26.3 

45 and over. ..... .15.7 



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Compare with these figures the following table: 
Ages at Which Women Marry 1 

" women marry before 20 

" " " 25 

" " " 35 

a a u . „ 

45 

" " " 55 

" " " 65 

IOO 

It will be observed that since the percentage of women 
at work decreases after twenty, the number of women 
who marry and presumably become homemakers is very 
largely increased. 

These figures would seem to indicate that girls go to 
work early, that as yet industry does not largely prevent 
marriage, and that marriage does in many or most cases 
stop women's industrial careers. 

Inquiry as to what women are doing in the industrial 
world elicits important facts. It would seem that Olive 
Schreiner's "For the present we take all labor for our 

1 From Puffer, Vocational Guidance, based on Census figures. 



The GirVs Work 153 

province" is very nearly a bare statement of attested 
fact. The Census report includes 509 closely classified 
occupations. Women are found in all but 43. Even 
allowing for the inaccuracy of such figures, and passing 




Photograph by C. Park Pressey 

The iqio Census showed over three hundred and thirty thousand 

women employed as farm laborers. This number did not 

include wives or daughters of farm- owners 

over the occupations which take in only an occasional 
woman, it is seen that "woman's sphere" can no longer 
be arbitrarily defined. The following facts and figures 
for women give us food for thought: 

Farm laborers (working out) 337,522 

Iron and steel industries 29,182 

Chemical industries 1 5,577 

Clay, glass, and stone industries 11,849 

Electrical supply factories 11,041 

Lumber and furniture industries 17,214 

Steam railroad laborers 3,248 

The foregoing facts concern occupations which were 



154 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

once associated entirely with men. If we enter the ranks 
of more womanly work we shall find: 

Dressmakers 447,760 

Milliners . . 122,070 

Sewers and sewing-machine operators 231,106 

Telephone operators 88,262 

Nurses 187,420 

Clerks and saleswomen in stores 362,081 

Stenographers and typists 263,315 

Bookkeepers, cashiers, and accountants. . .187,155 

Cooks 333A36 

Laundresses (not in laundries) 520,004 

Teachers 478,027 

These are of course merely a few among the four hun- 
dred and fifty kinds of work in which women are found. 
Any survey of women's work comes close to a general 
survey of industry. We shall find that in some occupa- 
tions the proportion of men is much larger than that of 
women. In others women have made rapid strides. 
The accompanying diagram shows that in professional 
service, in domestic and personal service, and in clerical 
occupations women are found in largest numbers. In 
domestic and personal service the women outnumber 
the men more than two to one. In professional service 
there are four women to five men, a large proportion of 
the women being teachers. In the clerical occupations 
we have one woman to each two men, in manufacturing 
one woman to six men, in agriculture one woman to seven 
men, and in trade one to eight. The occupations for 
women have been changed somewhat by the new indus- 
trial conditions forced upon us by the war, but it is very 
probable that in a few years the industrial world will 
return to its normal status before the war for both 
men and women. 



The Girl's Work 



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156 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



If it is true that women are claiming and will con- 
tinue to claim "all labor" for their province, the claim 
must rest upon one of two assumptions: Either women 
are physically, mentally, and morally identical in their 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 



Farmerettes. During the World War women at home and abroad 
rendered especially valuable services in agricultural work 



The GirVs Work 157 

capabilities with men, or differences in physical, mental, 
and moral make-up must be considered as not affecting 
work. Most of us are not yet ready to agree to either 
of these premises. We must therefore believe that some 
occupations are more suitable for one sex than for the 
other. The fact is, however, that only a small group of 
radical thinkers have made the opposite claim. Women 
are found, it is true, in a large number of the occupations 
in which men are found. But they are there for some 
other reason than that they claim all labor as their sphere. 
Some are driven by the stern necessity of doing whatever 
work is at hand; some by ignorance of their unfitness, or 
of the unfitness of the work for them; some by the spirit 
of the age which says, "Come, be free. Try these things 
'that men do. See if they suit you. Find your sphere." 

Probably, however, this last reason for entering unsuit- 
able occupations is the one least often underlying the 
choice. Girls select vocations in the main as boys do. 
Until very lately chance has been the ruling element far 
oftener than anything else. 

Studies in industry are now for the first time giving 
us adequate information as to requirements for efficiency, 
working conditions, wages, living possibilities, and the 
effects, moral and physical, of various occupations upon 
both men and women. The problems arising out of the 
crossing and recrossing of these various elements are as 
yet but vaguely understood. The great gain lies in the 
fact that their solution is being sought. 

The community is of necessity interested in working- 
women as it is in workingmen. Without these workers 
the community does not exist. When they are ill-paid, 
overworked, underfed, discontented, or inefficient, the 
community necessarily suffers. When they work under 
proper conditions, the community shares their prosperity. 



158 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



It is thus coming to be seen that the condition of workers 
is the concern of all the members of the community. 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Factory workers. Sewers and sewing-machine operators to the 

number of over 230,000, according to the iqiq Census, 

are employed in the United States 

In the case of the woman worker, however, and especially 
of the young woman worker, the community has a further 
interest because of the service that women render as the 
mothers of the next and indeed of all future generations. 
If, then, it is shown that women are physically unfit for 
certain occupations that men may follow with safety, it 
becomes the business of the community to protect women, 
even against themselves if necessary, and to deter them 
from entering such lines of work. 

The community must make use of various agencies in 
bringing about the proper relations between women and 
their work. It may use legislation, thereby securing, for 
example, factory inspectors to improve the sanitary and 



The GirVs Work 159 

moral conditions in the places where women and girls 
are employed. It may use the school, the library, and 
various civic improvement forces to inform both girls 
and their parents as to conditions under which girls 
should work. It may employ vocational guides to make 
proper connections between women and their work. 

For all these agencies to do satisfactory work, the first 
requisite is knowledge of conditions. This means skillful 
work upon a vast and rapidly increasing body of facts, and 
wide dissemination of the results of such work. 

We may not stop here to consider what legislatures 
have done and are doing to improve conditions, other 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Unemployed utilizing their spare time to make themselves more 
efficient. The community may make use of the schools for 
such purposes 

than to mention that the number of hours that women 
may work is restricted in some states, as is night work, 
and that a minimum wage is required in some. 

Our question, however, is not so much what is forbidden 
women in the way of work, as what women and girls will 



160 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

choose to do of the work which is not forbidden. Facts 
as to what women are doing concern us mainly as material 
from which to deduce information of value to the girls 
who have not yet chosen. 

A serious obstacle to wise choice on the part of young 
girls who are pushing into industrial occupations is the 
uncertainty of their continuing as workers outside the 
home. The average length of the girl's industrial life 
is computed to be only about five years. She enters 
upon work at an age when it is often impossible to tell 
whether she will marry or remain single. She is usually 
unable to know whether or not she will desire to marry. 
The great majority of girls have therefore no stable con- 
ditions upon which to build a choice. The work girls 
choose and their instability in the work they enter upon 
are direct results of these unstable conditions. Many 
girls feel the need of little or no training, and apply for 
any work obtainable, merely because they anticipate 
that their industrial career will soon be over. 

A government report on the condition of woman and 
girl wage-earners in the United States gives the following 
facts concerning 1,391 women working in stores: 

Average length of service 5.17 years 

Average wage: 

First year $4.69 per week 

Second year 5 . 28 " " 

Tenth year 9.81 " 

Among 3,421 factory women investigated: 

Average length of service 4.46 years 

Average wage: 

First year $4.62 per week 

Second year 5 . 34 " " 

Tenth year 8.48 " 






The Girls Work 



161 



These stores and factories were presumably filled by 
girls who seized the most available source of a weekly 
wage regardless of all but the pay envelope. Few of 
them remained more than five years, and those who did 
remain did not receive adequate increase in their pay 
by the tenth year for workers of ten years' experience. 







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Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A cotton-mill worker. Unfortunately in the factories girls are 

too often influenced by the pay envelope rather than by any 

special fitness for the work they are to do 

The whole industrial situation as it concerns women 
would indicate that women even more than men show 
lack of discrimination in seeking to place themselves, 
and that the sources of information for them have been 
few if not entirely lacking. Happily these conditions are 
changing. We have now to teach girls to avail themselves 
of the information and the guidance at hand and to learn 
to discriminate in their choice of work. 

Girls must realize that unskillful, mechanical work, done 
always with a mental reservation that it is merely a 
temporary expedient, keeps women's wages low, destroys 



1 62 Vocational Guidance for Girls 






confidence in female capacity, and has definite bearing 
not only on the individual woman's earning capacity, 
but on her character as well. Girls must learn to choose 
in such a way that their work may be an opening into a 
life career or may be an enlightening prelude to marriage 
and the making of a home. 

Some of the women who uphold the doctrine of equality 
between the sexes make the mistake of thinking and of 
teaching that there can be no equality without identical 
work. They take the attitude that unless women do all 
the sorts of work that men do, they are unjustly deprived 
of their rights. Our contention is rather that women 
have higher rights than that of identical work with men. 
They, above all other workers, should have the right 
of intelligent choice of work which they can do to the 
advantage of themselves, their offspring, and the com- 
munity. Such a choice will ignore the question of sex 
as a drawback, accepting it, on the other hand, merely 
as a condition which, like other conditions, complicates 
but does not necessarily hamper choice. No girl need 
feel hampered by her sex because she chooses not to do 
work which fails either to utilize her peculiar gifts or to 
lead in what seems to her a profitable direction. No 
girl should feel that her industrial experience, however 
short, has nothing to contribute to the home life of which 
she dreams. No girl need waste the knowledge and skill 
gained in industrial life when she abandons gainful 
occupation for the home. Homemaking education, with 
industrial experience, ought to make the ideal preparation 
for life work. 

This, however, can be true only when the girl's indus- 
trial experience is of the right sort. Girls must therefore 
be led to choose the developing occupation. It is a part 
of the world's economy to lead them to this choice. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Girl's Work {Continued) — Classification 
of Occupations 

IT is well at the outset to recognize that vocation 
choosing is at best a complicated matter which, to 
be successfully carried out, demands not only much 
information, but information from different viewpoints. 
It is not enough to insure a living, even a good living, in 
the work a girl chooses. We must take into consideration 
the girl's effect upon society as a teacher, nurse, sales- 
woman, or office worker; and no less, in view of her 
evident destiny as mother of the race, must we consider 
society's effect upon her, as it finds her in the place she 
has chosen. In other words, will she serve society to the 
best of her ability, and will her service fit her to be a 
better homemaker than she would have been had no 
vocation outside the home intervened between her 
school training and her final settling in a home of her 
own making? 

This double question must find answer in consideration 
of vocations from each of several viewpoints. We may 
classify occupations open to girls (i) from the standpoint 
.of the girl's fitness, physical and psychological; (2) from 
the standpoint of industrial conditions, the sanitary, 
mental, and moral atmosphere, and the rewards obtain- 
able; (3) as factors increasing, decreasing, or not affect- 
ing the girl's possible home efficiency or the likelihood 
of taking up home life; (4) from the standpoint of the 
girl's education; (5) from the standpoint of service to 
society. 

163 



164 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Our first classification concerns the girl's fitness for this 
or that work. The everyday work of the world in which 
our girls are to find a part may be separated into three 
fairly well-marked classes: making things, distributing 
things, and service. The first question we must ask 
concerning a girl desirous of finding work is, then: Toward 
which of these classes does her natural ability and therefore 
probably her inclination tend? Natural handworkers 
make poor saleswomen; natural traders or saleswomen 
are likely to be uninterested and ineffective handworkers. 
The girl whose interests are all centered in people must 
not be condemned to spend her life in the production of 
things; nor, as is far more common, must the girl who 
can make things, and enjoys making them, spend her 
life in merely handling the things other people have made, 
as she strives to make connection between these things 
and the people who want them. Then there is the girl 
who is efficient and who finds her pleasure in " doing 
things for people." Service — and we must remember 
that service is a wide term, and that no stigma should 
attach to the class of workers which includes the teacher, 
the physician, and the minister — is clearly the direc- 
tion in which such a girl's vocational ambition should be 
turned. 

It would be idle to assert that all women are suited to 
marriage, motherhood, and domestic life, although there 
is little doubt that early training may develop in some a 
suitability which would otherwise remain unsuspected. 
When, however, early training fails to bring out any 
inclination toward these things, we may well consider 
seriously before we exert the weight of our influence 
toward them. Home-mindedness shows itself in many 
ways, and it should have been a matter of observation 
years before the girl faces the choice of a vocation. It is 



Classification of Occupations 165 

usually of little avail to attempt to turn the attention of 
the girl who is definitely not thus minded toward the 
domestic life. On the other hand, the girl who is naturally 
so minded will respond readily to suggestions leading 
toward the occupations which require and appeal to her 
domestic nature. The great majority of girls, however, 
are not definitely concious of either home-mindedness or 
the opposite. They are in fact not yet definitely cogni- 
zant of any natural bent. It is these girls who are espe- 
cially open to the influence of environment, of what may 
prove temporary inclination, or of false notions of the 
advantage of certain occupations in choosing a life work. 
These are the girls, too, who are likely to drift into 
marriage as they are likely to drift into any other occupa- 
tion, and whose previous vocation may have added to or 
perfected their homemaking training or, on the other 
hand, may have developed in them habits and traits 
which will effectually kill their usefulness in the home life. 
These, then, are the girls who are most of all in need of 
wise assistance in choosing that which may prove to be 
a temporary vocation or may become a life work. The 
temporary idea must be combated vigorously in the girl's 
mind. Many an unwise choice would have been avoided 
had the girl really faced the possibility of making the work 
she undertook a life work. The temporary idea makes 
inefficient workers and discontented women. 

There is in most cases, especially among the fairly well- 
to-do, no dearth of assistance offered to the young girl 
in making her choice. Much of the advice, unfortunately, 
is not based on real knowledge either of vocations or of 
the girl. Knowledge is absolutely necessary to successful 
judgment in this delicate matter. 

From a large number of letters written by high-school 
girls let me quote the following typical answers to the 



1 66 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

question: Why have you chosen the vocation for which 
you are preparing? 

"Ever since I could walk my uncle has been making plans for 
me in music." 

"My first ambition was to be a stenographer, but my father 
objected. My father's choice was for me to be a teacher, and 
before long it was mine too." 

"My ambition until my Junior year in High School was to 
be a teacher. From that time until now my ambition is to 
be a good stenographer. My reason for changing is due partly 
to my friends and parents. My parents do not want me to 
be a teacher, as they consider it too hard a life." 

"I have been greatly influenced by my teacher, who thinks 
I have a chance [as a dramatic art teacher]. I am willing to 
take her word for it." 

"Mother says it is a very ladylike occupation" [stenography]. 

"My music instructor wishes for me to become a concert 
player, or at least a good music teacher, and I now think I wish 
the same." 

These answers all show the customary ease of throwing 
out advice, and also the undue significance attached by 
girls to these probably inexpert opinions. 

Parents often fail in their attempts to launch their 
children successfully. Sometimes they attempt unwisely 
to thrust a child into an occupation merely because "it is 
ladylike/' or the "vacation is long," or "the pay is good," 
regardless of the child's aptitude or limitations. Quite 
often they await inspiration in the form of some revelation 
of the child's desires, regardless of the demand of society 
for such service as the child may elect to supply or the 
effect of the vocation upon the child's health or character. 
Undue sacrifice on the part of parents has without ques- 
tion swelled the ranks of mediocre physicians and lawyers 
and clergymen. It has doubtless produced thousands of 



Classification of Occupations 167 

teachers who cannot teach, nurses who are quite unsuited 
to the sick-room, and office workers who have not the 
rudiments of business ability. 

It would seem that truly successful guidance in a girl's 
search for a vocation can come, like much of her training, 
only from wise cooperation of school and home. Teacher 
and parent see the girl from different angles. Their com- 
bined judgment will consequently have double value. 

As the time of vocational choice approaches, school 
records should cover larger ground than before, and 
should be made with great care, with constant appeal to 
parents for confirmation and additional facts. 

The record should cover : 

1. Physical characteristics: Height; weight; lung capa- 
city; sight; hearing; condition of nasal passages; condi- 
tion of teeth; bodily strength and endurance; nerve 
strength or weakness. 

2. Health history: Time lost from school by illness; 
school work as affected by physical condition when the 
girl is in school ; probable ability or inability to bear the 
confinement of an indoor occupation; any early illness, 
accident, or surgical operation which may affect health 
and therefore vocational possibilities. 

3. Mental characteristics: The quality of school work; 
studious or active in temperament; best suited for head 
work, handwork, or a combination; ability to work 
independently of teacher or other guide; studies most 
enjoyed; studies in which best work is done; evidences, 
if any, of special talent, and whether or not sufficient to 
form basis of life work. 

4. Moral characteristics: Honesty; moral courage; sta- 
bility; tact; combativeness ; leader or follower. 

5. Heredity: Physical statistics in regard to parents, 
brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts; occupations 

12 



1 68 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

followed by these, with success or otherwise; family tradi- 
tions as to work; special abilities in family noted. 

6. Vocational ambitions. 

7. Family resources for special training. 

Without some such record as this— and it need scarcely 
be said that the one given here is capable of wide adapta- 
tion to special needs — teachers, parents, or other friends 
of the girl are poorly equipped for giving advice as to the 
girl's future. And yet it is common enough for such 
advice to be thrown out in the most casual manner, with 
scarcely a thought of the ambitions awakened or of the 
future to which they may lead. 

"You certainly ought to go on the stage," chorus the 
admiring friends of the girl who excels in the work of the 
elocution class. And sometimes with no other counsel than 
this, from people who really know nothing about the 
matter, the girl struggles to enter the theatrical world, 
only to find that her talent, sufficient to excite admiring 
comment among her friends, has proved inadequate to 
make her a worth-while actress. 

"Why don't you study art?" say the friends of another 
girl; or, "You like to take care of sick people. Why don't 
you train for nursing?" or, "You're so fond of books. 
I should think you would be a librarian" — quite regard- 
less of the fact that the girl advised to study art has 
neither the perseverance nor the health to study success- 
fully; that the one advised to be a nurse lacks patience 
and repose to a considerable degree; or that the one 
advised to be a librarian is already suffering from strained 
eyes and should choose her vocation from the great out- 
doors. 

Knowledge of the girl must, however, be supplemented 
by a wide knowledge of vocations to be of real value to 
the teacher or parent who is preparing to give vocational 



Classification oj Occupations 169 

counsel. Final choice may be reached only after the girl 
and the vocation are brought into comparative scrutiny, 
and their mutual fitness determined. In rare cases the 
choice may be made by the swift process of observing a 
great talent which, in the absence of serious objections, 
must govern the life work. Oftener the process is one of 
elimination, or of building up from a general foundation 
of the girl's abilities and limitations, and her possibilities 
for training sufficient to make her an efficient worker in 
the line chosen. 

A knowledge of vocations presupposes, first of all, a 
grasp of the essentials of the work, and hence the charac- 
teristics required in the worker to perform it. What sort 
of girl is needed to make an efficient teacher, nurse, sales- 
woman, or office worker? How may we recognize this 
potential teacher without resorting to a clumsy, time- 
wasting, trial-and-error method? These are matters 
with which schools and vocational guides all over the 
country are occupying themselves. Perhaps we cannot do 
better than to examine somewhat these requirements for 
some occupations toward which girls most often incline. 

THE PRODUCING GROUP 

The girl who is by nature a maker of things may be a 
factory worker, a needlewoman, a baker, a poultry farmer, 
a milliner, a photographer, or an artist with brush or with 
voice, or in dramatic work. She is still one who makes 
things. We see at once how wide a range of industry may 
open to her. 

How shall we know this type of girl? First of all, by 
her interest in things rather than in people. With the 
exception of the singer and the dramatic artist, whose 
production is of an intangible sort, the girl who makes 
things is a handworker by choice. The extent to which 



170 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



her handwork is touched by the imaginative instinct of 
course measures the distance that she may make her way 
up the ladder of productive work. The girl's school 
record will usually show her best work with concrete 
materials. She draws or sews well, has excellent results 
in the cooking class, works well in the laboratory. At 
home she finds enjoyment in ' 'making things" of one sort 
or another. She displays ingenuity, perhaps, in meeting 
constructive problems. If so, that must be considered in 
finding her place. 

Handwork for women includes a wide range of occupa- 
tions. Let us now examine some of these kinds of work. 



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In the packing room of a wholesale house. The untrained girl 
finds it easy to obtain factory work 

Factory work. This term covers many departments of 
manufacturing industries. In the main, however, they 
may be classed together, since in practically all of them 
the worker contributes only one small portion of the work 



C 1 ossification of Occupations 171 

incidental to the making of candy, or artificial flowers, or 
coats, or pickles, or shoes, or corsets, or underwear, or any 
one of a hundred different products, some one or several 
of which may be found in nearly every American town. 

The great advantage of factory work, as the untrained 
girl sees it, is that it is usually easy to obtain and that it 
promises some return even from the start. Hence a large 
proportion of untrained girls who leave school as soon as 
the law allows enter the factories near their homes. 

The great disadvantages of factory work, laying aside 
for a moment many minor disadvantages, are that it 
not only requires no skill in the beginner, but that it 
produces little if any skill even with years of work and 
offers practically no advancement for a large proportion 
of the workers. It should, therefore, be reserved for 
girls of less keen intelligence, and other girls should if 
possible be guided toward other occupations. 

Teachers must make themselves thoroughly familiar 
with working conditions in local factories, since there 
will always be girls who, because of their own limita- 
tions or the limitations of their environment, will find 
themselves obliged to take up factory work. Under the 
teacher's guidance girls should make definite studies and 
prepare detailed reports of local conditions with respect to 
working hours, character of work, wages, possible advance- 
ment, dangers to health, moral conditions, advantages 
over other occupations open to girls with no more train- 
ing, and disadvantages. Girls should at least go into 
factory work with their eyes open, that they may pass 
their days in the best surroundings available. 

Dressmaking. The possibilities for the girl entering 
upon work connected with dressmaking with the ultimate 
object of becoming a dressmaker herself are far wider 
than in the case of the machine worker in shop or factory. 



172 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



The immediate return for the untrained girl is far less, 
but the farsighted girl must learn to look beyond the 
immediate present. Not all girls, however, will make 
good dressmakers. Not all, even of the producing type 
of girl, will do so. Certain definite qualities are required. 
The girl who would succeed as a dressmaker must possess 
ingenuity, imagination, and the visualizing type pi mind. 
She must see the end from the beginning, and must be 
able to find the way to produce that which she visualizes. 
She must be a keen observer. She must have confidence 
in her- own power to create. She must possess manual 
dexterity, artistic ideas, and, if she aims at a business of 
her own, a pleasing personality and keen business sense. 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A millinery class. Millinery requires of the girl a certain degree 
of creative ability 

Millinery. Millinery requires in its workers the same 
general type of mind required for dressmaking, and in 
addition a certain millinery faculty or creative ability. 
The girl who can make and trim hats usually discovers 
her own talent fairly early in life. 



( lassification of Occupations 173 

Arts and crafts. This somewhat elastic term we use 
to include a wide range of occupations which have to do 
with articles of use or ornament which are handmade 
and which require skill in designing or in carrying out 
designs. Embroidery, lace making, rug and tapestry 
weaving, basketry, china painting, wood and leather 
work, handwork in metals, bookbinding, and the design- 
ing and painting of cards for various occasions are familiar 
examples of this kind of work. Photography, map 
making, designing of wall paper and fabrics, costume 
designing and illustrating, making of signs, placards, 
diagrams, working drawings, advertising illustrations, 
book and magazine illustrating, landscape gardening and 
architecture, interior decorating, are other lines offering 
work to men and women alike. 

The range of work here is no greater than the range 
of qualities which may be happily and usefully employed 
in arts and crafts. All branches of the work, however, 
are alike in demanding a certain degree of artistic sense 
and deftness of manual touch. An accurate, observant 
eye is an absolute essential, and, for all but the lowest 
and most mechanical lines of work, imagination, origi- 
nality, and an inventive habit of mind make the founda- 
tion of success. In some lines a fine sense of color values 
must underlie good work, in others the ability to draw 
easily. All work of this sort requires the ability to do 
careful, painstaking, and persevering work. Given this 
ability and the artistic sense before mentioned, the girl's 
work may be determined by some special talent, by 
the special training possible for her, or by the openings 
possible in her chosen line of work within comparatively 
easy access. 

Agriculture. The Census figures which report one- 
fifth of all women gainfully employed as engaged in 



174 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



agriculture and animal husbandry are somewhat startling 
until we observe that southern negro women make up a 
very large number of the farm workers reported. Ever 
aside from these, however, there are many women whc 
are finding work in gardening, poultry raising, bee 




1 •. '- V ' 



Photograph by C. Park Pressey 

A youthful farmer. The Census figures for the year iqio report 

one-fifth of all women employed in gainful occupations as 

engaged in the pursuit of agriculture and 

animal husbandry 

culture, dairying, and the like. The girl who is fitted 
to take up work of this sort is usually the girl who has 
grown up on the farm or at least in the country and who 
has a sympathy with growing things. She is essentially 
the "outdoor girl." She must be willing to study the 
science of making things grow. She must be able to 
keep accounts, that she may know what she is doing 
and what her profits are. Above all, she must have no 
false pride about "dirty work." Properly such a girl 
should have entered upon her career even before she 
has finished her formal education, so that "going to work " 



Classification of Occupations 175 

means merely enlarging her work to occupy her time 
more fully and to bring in as soon as possible a living 
income. 

In this sort of work the girl possessing initiative and 
an independent spirit will naturally do best, since there 
are comparatively few opportunities for such work under 
supervision. Care must, however, be exercised by voca- 
tional guides in suggesting, and by girls in choosing, the 
independent career. Usually it is the girl who has shown 
promise in independent work at school or at home 
that will make a success of such work later in life. The 
girl who relaxes when the pressure of compulsion is 
removed will not be a success as "her own boss." It 
goes without saying that the girl who does well as her 
own superior officer will be happier to do work upon her 
own initiative than merely to carry out the plans made 
by others. Agricultural work will sometimes offer her 
exactly the conditions she desires. Many successful 
farm-owners are women, and their work compares favor- 
ably with that of men. 

Food production. It is common, in these days, to meet 
the assertion that the preparation of food, once woman's 
undisputed work, has been almost if not quite removed 
from her hands; and that, even where she may still 
contribute to this work, she must do so in the factory, 
the bakery, the packing house, or the delicatessen shop. 
There are, nevertheless, still many women who are fitted 
for cooking and kindred pursuits who will not find an 
outlet for their abilities in any of the places mentioned. 
In the main, factory production of food is like factory 
production of other things — a highly differentiated pro- 
cess, in which the individual worker finds little satisfaction 
for her desire to "make things" and little, if any, oppor- 
tunity to contribute from her ability to the final result. 



176 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



In the canning factory she may sit all day before an 
ever-moving procession of beans or peas, from which she 




An up-to-date factory. In the factory the work is necessarily 

routine, and the individual worker finds very little 

satisfaction for her desire to make things 

removes any unsuitable for cooking. Or it may be an 
endless procession of cans, upon which she rapidly lays 
covers as they pass. In the pickle factory she may pack 
tiny cucumbers into bottles. In the packing house she 
may perform the task of painting cans. None of these 
occupations is more than mere unskilled labor. None is 
suitable for the girl who likes to cook, and who can cook. 
The number of such girls is already fairly large and will 
undoubtedly increase as the domestic science classes of 
our schools do more and better work. 

Opposed to the theoretical statement that food is or at 
least to-morrow will be prepared entirely in the public- 
utility plants outside the home is the practical fact that 



Classification of Occupations 



177 



home-cooked food, home-preserved fruits and jellies, and 
home-canned vegetables and meats find ready sale and 
that women who can produce these things do find it 
profitable to do so. There is, consequently, a field for 
some girls in such work. 

Not all girls, on the other hand, who have taken the 
domestic science course are fitted to take up this work, 
even if a market could be found for their work. Only 
the expert, that is, the precise, accurate, painstaking cook, 
can secure uniform results day after day. Only the rapid 
worker can do enough to insure pay for her time. Only 
the girl with a keen sense of taste can properly judge 











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Cooking class at Benson Polytechnic School for Girls, Portland, 

Oregon. In spite of the statement that foods will be prepared 

in the public utility plants, the trained, accurate worker 

may find a ready sale for home-cooked foods 

results and devise successful combinations. Only a busi- 
ness woman can buy to advantage and compute ratios of 
expense and return. This combination, of course, is not 
to be found every day. 



i 7 8 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



THE DISTRIBUTING GROUP 



Salesmanship. Passing from the class of work which 
has to do with making things to that group of occupa- 
tions which has to do with the distribution of various 
products to the consumer, we shall naturally consider, 
first of all, the saleswoman. In any given group of young 
and untrained girls drawn as in our schools from varying 
environment and heredity, the natural saleswomen will 
probably be in the minority. I do not mean that girls 
may not often express a desire to "work in a store" as 
apparently the easiest and most immediate employment 
for the untrained girl. This may or may not indicate that 
the girl has a commercial mind. The girl who is really 
interested in commercial undertakings is easily distin- 
guished from her fellow workers in any salesroom. She 
is not the girl who lingers in conversation with the girl 
next to her while a customer waits, or who gazes indiffer- 
ently over the customer's head while the latter makes her 
choice from the goods laid before her. To the real sales- 
woman every customer is a possibility, every sale a victory, 
and every failure to sell distinctly a defeat. The fact 
that we see so few girls and women of this type behind the 
counters in our shopping centers is sufficient indication 
that many girls would have been better placed in other 
occupations. 

We find, however, in 19 10, the number of saleswomen 
reported as 257,720, together with 111,594 " clerks" in 
stores, many of whom the report states are "evidently 
saleswomen" under another name. There are also about 
4,000 female proprietors, officials, managers, and floor- 
walkers in stores, and 2,000 commercial travelers. This 
gives us a large number of women who are engaged in the 
sale of goods. For the girl of the commercial mind, sales- 
manship in some form presents certain possibilities, 



Classification of Occupations 



179 



although there is far less chance for her to rise in this 
work than for a boy. She must begin at the most rudi- 
mentary work, as cash or errand girl, and her progess will 
necessarily be slow. She will require an ability to handle 
with some skill elementary forms of arithmetic, an alert 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Hardware section of a department store. Salesmanship offers 
large opportunities to the real saleswoman, who considers 
every customer a possibility 

and observing mind, an interest in and some knowledge 
of human nature, and good health to endure the confine- 
ment of the long day. She will be fortunate if she finds 
a place in one of the stores in which a continuation school 
is conducted. At such a school in Altman's department 
store in New York the girls pursue a regular course 
designed to be especially helpful in their work, and are 
graduated with all due formality, in which both public- 
school and store officials take part. Such a school helps 
girls to feel a pride in their work and to feel that they are 
under observation by those who will recognize and reward 



180 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

real endeavor. Filene's in Boston and Wanamaker's in 
New York and Philadelphia are other notable examples 
of such schools. 

In a government report previously quoted we find 
interesting figures as to the possibility of advancement 
for the saleswoman. In a study of twenty-six of the 
largest department stores in New York, Chicago, and 
Philadelphia, employing more than 35,000 women, the 
workers were classed as follows: 

Per Cent 

Cash girls, messengers, bundle girls, etc 13 . 2 

Saleswomen 46 . 2 

Buyers and assistant buyers 1.2 

Office and other employees 39 . 4 






"It will be seen," adds the report, "that the opportunity 
for reaching the coveted position of buyer or assistant 
buyer is small/ ' 

The disadvantages and dangers of salesmanship for 
girls, other than small pay and improbability of much 
advancement, we shall consider in a later chapter. We 
may say here, however, that these disadvantages and 
dangers, for the really commercially minded girl, are to a 
certain extent neutralized by her nature and possibilities. 
She is the girl whose mind is more or less concentrated on 
"the selling game." Her nerves are less worn because of 
a certain exhilaration in her work. She is the girl who 
passes beyond the underpaid stage and is able to live 
decently and to rise to a position of some responsibility, 
partly because of her concentration and partly because she 
has been able to resist the influences about her which 
make for mediocrity or worse. 

Office work. The girl emerging from high school and 
looking for work is usually on the lookout for what in a 
boy we call a "white-collar job." Especially in the case 



Classification of Occupations 



181 



where the girl has been kept in school at more or less 
sacrifice on the part of her parents, both they and the girl 
feel that the extra years of schooling entitle her to a 
1 'high-class" occupation of some kind. Girls are far less 
willing than boys to * 'begin at the bottom" and work up 



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Office girls at work. The successful office worker must be neat and 
accurate and have a temperament in which pleasure in arrange- 
ment takes precedence over joy in production 

through the various stages of apprenticeship to ultimate 
positions near the top. They resent being asked to take 
the "overall" job and fear mightily to soil their hands. 
Twenty-five years ago a large proportion of high-school 
graduates went at once into the teaching force, where 
they succeeded (or not) in "learning to do by doing," 
without professional training of any sort. Now, however, 
teaching as a profession is in many places fortunately 
reserved for the girls who prepare in college or normal 
school; and a larger proportion of girls who cannot have 
this professional training are looking for other occupations. 



1 82 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Office work attracts a large number, and, with present- 
day business courses in high schools, many girls find 
employment as stenographers, typists, cashiers in small 
establishments, bookkeepers, or general office assistants. 
In any of these positions girls without special training or 
experience must begin at very low wages. Whether they 
rise to higher ones depends to some extent at least upon 
the girls themselves. 

What sort: of girl shall we encourage to enter office work? 
Not the girl whose talent lies in making things, for to her 
the routine of the office will be a weary and endless tread- 
mill entirely barren of results ; nor the girl who requires 
the stimulus of people to keep her alert and keyed to her 
best work; nor the girl who cannot be happy at indoor 
work. Office work seems to require a temperament in 
which pleasure in arrangement takes precedence over 
joy in production; in which neatness, accuracy, and 
precision afford satisfaction even in monotonous tasks. 
Coupled with these a mathematical bent gives us the 
cashier or accountant or bookkeeper; mental alertness 
and manual dexterity, the stenographer; a talent for 
organization, the secretary. 

Girls who enter upon office work directly from high 
school must be content with rudimentary tasks and must 
beware lest they remain at a low level in the office force. 
Girls with more training may begin somewhat farther up, 
the best positions usually going to those whose general 
education and equipment are greatest. Stenographers 
are more valuable in proportion as their knowledge 
of spelling, sentence formation, and letter writing is 
reinforced by a feeling for good English and an r ' : ty 
to relieve their superiors of details in outlining <_ 
spondence. It is not enough that bookkeepers kno 
one or several systems of keeping business records, or 
that cashiers manipulate figures rapidly and well. More 



Classification of Occupations 



183 



important than these fundamental requirements is the 
determination to grasp the details of the business as 
conducted in the office in which they find themselves and 
to adapt their work to the needs of the person whose 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

The successful secretary must have a talent for organization 

work they do. General knowledge and the ability to 
think not only supplement, but easily become more 
valuable than, technical training. 

A careful study of local conditions as they affect office 
positions will enable girls and their guides to have a better 
conception of requirements and rewards in this field. A 
valuable study of conditions among office girls in Cleve- 
la*~ as recently been published which sheds considerable 
on the ultimate industrial fate of the overyoung and 

jorly trained office worker. A more general study is 
found in the volume on Women in Office Service issued by 
the Women's Educational Union of Boston, 

13 



184 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

THE SERVICE GROUP 

The third, or service, group of workingwomen covers 
without doubt the widest range of all. Here we find the 
domestic helper (or servant, as she has usually been called) , 
the telephone operator, the librarian, the teacher, the 
nurse, the physician, the lawyer, the social worker, the 
clergyman or minister. All degrees of training are repre- 
sented, and many varieties of work, from the simplest to 
the most complex. 

Strictly speaking, service has to do with personal 
attendance and help, but it is constantly overlapping 
other lines of work. The household assistant is not only 
a helper, but at times a producer; the telephone operator 
and the librarian are distributors as well as public helpers; 
the secretary is an office worker, although she is a personal 
assistant to her employer as well. For successful work in 
any of these lines, however, a girl must possess certain 
definite characteristics, to which her peculiar talent or 
tendency may give the determining direction as she 
chooses her work. 

In service of any sort the girl is brought into constant 
relation with people. Hence she must be the sort of girl 
to whom people and not things are the chief interest of 
life. She should have an agreeable personality, that she 
may give pleasure with her service; she needs tact, that 
she may keep the atmosphere about her unruffled; she 
needs to find pleasure for herself in service, seeing always 
the end rather than merely the often wearisome details 
of work. Beyond these general qualities we must begin 
at once to make subdivisions, since the additional traits 
necessary to make a girl successful in one line of service 
differ often widely from those required in any other line. 
We must therefore take up some of the lines of work in 
more or less detail. 



Classification of Occupations 185 

Domestic work. The untrained girl who naturally falls 
into the service group has a rather poor outlook for con- 
genial and successful work as conditions exist. With 
ability which she perhaps does not possess, and with 
training which she cannot afford, she would naturally 
become a teacher, a nurse, a private secretary, a librarian, 
or a social worker. Without training, she finds little 
except domestic service open to her ; and domestic service 
finds little favor with girls, or with students of vocational 
possibilities for girls. 

These are unfortunate facts. For the untrained girl of 
merely average abilities, with no pronounced talent or 
inclination, but with an interest in persons and a pleasure 
in doing things for people, helping in the tasks of home- 
making ought to prove suitable work. It is, however, 
the one vocation for the untrained girl which requires her 
to live in the home of her employer, thus curtailing her 
independence, rendering her hours of work long and 
uncertain, and cutting off the natural social environment 
possible if she returned to her own home at the end of 
the day's work. The social position of girls in domestic 
service, especially in the towns and cities, is peculiarly 
hard for a self-respecting girl to bear. It is in large part 
a reflection upon her sacrifice of independence. The 
derisive slang term "slavey" expresses the generally 
prevalent public contempt. It is small wonder that a 
girl fears to brave such a sentiment and as a result avoids 
what is perhaps in itself congenial work in pleasanter 
surroundings than most noisy, ill-smelling factories. 

Almost all the conditions surrounding the domestic 
worker are such that it is practically impossible to say 
except of each place considered by itself whether or not 
it is a suitable and desirable place for a girl, or whether 
work and wages are fair. Practically no progress has 



i86 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



been made in standardizing household work. The factory 
girl knows what she is to do and when she is to do it and 
how long her day is to be. The housework girl seldom 
knows any of these things with any degree of certainty. 
Any plan which will make it possible to regulate these 
matters according to some recognized standard, and which 
will enable domestic workers to live at home, going to and 
from their work at regular hours as shop, factory, and 
office employees do, will help very materially to solve 
the problem of opening another desirable vocation to the 
untrained girl. 

The untrained girl who is willing to accept a difficult 
and trying position in a private kitchen with the idea of 
making her work serve her as a training school for better 
work in the future may make a success of her life after 
all. Such a girl will have good observing powers and 
ability to follow directions and gauge the success of results. 
She will have adaptability, patience, and a very definite 
ambition. For domestic service may be a stepping stone. 

For the high-school girl a better opening may some- 
times be found as a mother's helper. Many women who 
find the ordinary household helper unsatisfactory give 
employment to girls of refinement and high-school train- 
ing who are capable of assisting either with household 
tasks or with the care of children. Girls in such positions 
are usually made "one of the family," and are sometimes 
very happily situated. Their earnings are often more 
than those of other girls of their intelligence and training 
who are in offices or stores; but there is of course little 
chance of advancement, and there is still the prejudice 
against domestic work to be reckoned with. Here, as 
with household assistants, the greatest drawback is prob- 
ably lack of standardization of work and of working 
conditions. 



Classification of Occupations 187 

The girl who wishes to become a "mother's helper" 
must have a natural refinement and some knowledge of 
social usage if she is to be a sharer in the family life of her 
employer. She must use excellent English, must know 
how to dress quietly and suitably, and must not only know 
how to keep herself in the background of family life, but 
must be willing to remain somewhat in the shadows. 

Probably no better field for the investigation of these 
trying questions could be found than the high school. 
The ranks of employers of domestic help are being con- 
stantly recruited from the girls who were the high-school 
students of yesterday and have now taken their places as 
housekeepers. The high school then, where the problem 
may be approached in an impersonal manner quite 
impossible later when the question has become a personal 
one, is the proper place in which to study the domestic 
service question and to attempt its standardization. 

The higher positions involving domestic work are more 
in the nature of supervisory employment. Many women 
are employed as matrons in hospitals, boarding schools, 
and other institutions, as housekeepers in hotels, club 
buildings, or in large private establishments. These 
positions of course call for women who are not only 
thoroughly familiar with the work to be done, but are 
skilled in managing their subordinates who do the actual 
work. They require women who have administrative 
ability, knowledge of keeping accounts, proper standards 
of living and of service, and initiative. 

For the woman who has a desire to enter business for 
herself there are openings in the line of domestic work. 
From time immemorial women have managed lodging 
and boarding houses, sometimes with good returns. They 
are also the owners and managers of tea rooms, restau- 
rants, laundries, dyeing and cleaning establishments, 



i88 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



hairdressing and manicure shops, and day nurseries. All 
these occupations can be followed successfully only by the 
woman of business ability and some technical knowledge. 
They require not only knowledge but aptitude on the part 
of the worker. They are usually undertaken only by 
women of some experience, and are the result of some 
earlier choice rather than the choice of the vocation- 
seeking girl. 

Teaching. The teacher differs from the person who has 
merely an interest in human kind in the abstract, because 
she has a special interest in one particular class of human 
beings — those who are most distinctly in the process of 
making. She is interested in children, or she should not 
be teaching. This, however, is not enough. The girl 



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The true teacher represents a high type of social worker 

who wishes to teach must possess certain well-defined 
characteristics. Her health must be good, and her nerve 
force stable. Temperamentally she must be enthusiastic 
and optimistic, but capable of sustained effort even in the 
face of apparent failure. Her outlook must be broad, and 



Classification of Occupations 189 

her patience unfailing. Intellectually she must be a 
student, and if she possess considerable initiative and 
originality in her study, so much the better. She must 
not, however, become a student of mathematics or history 
or languages to the exclusion of the more absorbing study 
of her pupils, nor even to so great a degree as she studies 
them. The true teacher represents a high type of social 
worker. Many girls enter upon the work of teaching 
badly handicapped by the lack of some of these essential 
qualities and are in consequence never able to rise to real 
understanding and accomplishment of their work. 

Teaching in these days is a broad vocation, covering 
many different lines of work; probably no occupation for 
girls is so well known with both its conditions and rewards 
as this. In general, more girls than are by nature fitted 
for the work stand ready to undertake it. There is 
nevertheless difficulty for school officials in finding real 
teachers enough to fill their positions. For the right girl, 
teaching has much to offer. 

Library work. The librarian in these modern days is a 
most important public servant, and many openings in 
library work are to be found. The services to be per- 
formed range from purely routine work to a very high 
type of constructive service for the community. In the 
small libraries an ' "all-round" type of worker is required. 
In the larger ones specialties may be followed. In these 
larger libraries there are to be found permanent places for 
the routine workers. In smaller ones each worker should 
be in line for even the highest type of constructive work. 

The routine worker in the library is merely an office 
worker, and the same girl who would do well at the 
mechanical tasks of an office will do well here. The real 
librarian is of a different sort. She must have the neat- 
ness, precision, and accuracy of the office worker, to be 



190 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



sure ; but to these she must add a broad conception of the 
place of the library in the community, and must display 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A well-equipped library. The successful librarian must be 
scientifically trained for her work 

initiative and originality in bringing it to occupy that 
place. She must know books; she must know people. 
She must be in touch with current history, and be alert 
to place library material bearing upon it at the disposal 
of the people. She must have quick sympathies, tact, 
the teaching spirit (carefully concealed) , and much admin- 
istrative ability. And she must be trained for her work. 

Nursing. The nurse is in many ways like the teacher, 
and the girl who has the right temperament for successful 
teaching will usually make a successful nurse, tempera- 
mentally considered. Her mental traits, or perhaps more 
exactly her habits of thought, may be somewhat different. 
The teacher must be able to attend to many things; the 






Classification of Occupations 



191 



nurse must be able to concentrate on one. Originality 
and initiative are less to be desired, since the nurse is not 
usually in charge of her case directly, but rather subject 
to the doctor's orders. She must, nevertheless, be 
resourceful in emergencies, and of good judgment always. 
She should be calm as well as patient, quiet in speech and 
movement, a keen observer, and willing to accept responsi- 
bility. Absolute obedience and loyalty to her superiors 
is expected, and a high conception of the ethics of her 
calling. Underlying all these qualifications, the nurse 
must have not only good health but physical strength. 




Copyright by Keystone View Co. 

Durifig the World War nursing offered to women perhaps the largest 

opportunities for service. Here is shown Princess Mary of 

England in the Great Ormond Street Hospital, London 

Social work. This term covers many occupations which 
overlap the work of the teacher, the nurse, the secretary, 
the house mother or matron, and even that of the physi- 
cian and lawyer. The field of work is a large one, 



192 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



including settlement leaders and assistants, workers in 
social and community centers and recreation centers, 
vacation playgrounds, public and private charities, district 
nurses and visiting nurses sent out by various agencies, 
deaconesses and other church visitors, Young Women's 
Christian Association leaders and helpers, missionaries, 
welfare workers in large manufacturing or mercantile 
establishments, probation officers, and many others. 

The social worker must of course have the same suit- 
ability for teaching or nursing or any other of the various 
tasks that she may undertake as has the teacher or nurse 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

Settlement work at Greenwich House, New York. The settlement 
worker to succeed must be truly altruistic 

or other person who works under different auspices. She 
must have in addition a truly altruistic spirit, a deep 
earnestness which will survive discouragement, and a real 
insight into the circumstances, handicaps, and possibilities 



Classification of Occupations 193 

of others. This insight presupposes maturity of thought ; 
and the young girl must serve a long apprenticeship with 
life before she is at her best as a social worker. It some- 
times seems as though no field was so exactly suited to the 
abilities of the married woman who has time for service, 
or the mother whose children are grown, leaving her free 
again to teach or nurse the sick or bring justice to the 
little child as she was trained to do in her youth. 

Less common vocations for women — but still often 
chosen after all — are reserved for those whose abilities 
are so specialized and so striking that they compel a choice. 
Singers, artists with brush or pen, the natural actress, the 
journalist or author, need usually no one to guide their 
choice. Our great difficulty here is not to open the girl's 
eyes to her opportunity, but to restrain the one who has 
not measured her ability correctly from attempting that 
which she cannot perform. The same is true of girls who 
aspire to be physicians, lawyers, or ministers. Some few 
succeed in all these vocations. Many more have not the 
scientific habits of mind, the stability, or the endurance 
to make a successful fight for recognition against great 
odds. 

Many girls mistake what may be a pleasant and satis- 
fying avocation for a life work. For the girl who will not 
be held back, there may be a life of achievement ahead, 
with fame and all the other accompaniments of successful 
public life; or there may be the disappointments of 
unrealized ambition. We must see that girls face this 
possibility with the other. 



CHAPTER XII 

The Girl's Work {Continued) — Vocations as 
Affecting Homemaking 

CHOICE of vocation is far from being a simple 
matter for either boy or girl; but for the girl who 
recognizes homemaking as woman's work, double possibil- 
ities complicate her problem more than that of the boy. 
The girl must prepare for life work in the home, or life work 
outside the home, or a period of either followed by the other, or 
perhaps a combination of both during some part or even all of 
her mature life. 

It is the part of wisdom for us to study vocations in 
their relation to homemaking. Will the girl who works 
in the factory, for instance, or who becomes a teacher or a 
lawyer or a physician, be as good a homemaker as she 
would have been had she chosen some other occupation? 
Will she perhaps be a better homemaker for her vocational 
experience? Or will her life in the industrial world unfit 
her for life in the home or turn her inclination away from 
the homemaker's work? 

These questions have somehow fallen into the back- 
ground in the steady increase of girls as industrial workers. 
"Good money" has usually come first, and after that 
other considerations of social advantage, working con- 
ditions, or local demand. Marriage and motherhood are 
still recognized as normal conditions for most women, but 
we let their industrial life step in between their home- 
making preparation in home and school, with the result 
that many lose physical fitness or mental aptitude or 
inclination for the home life. We treat marriage as an 

194 



Vocations as Affecting Homemaking 195 

incident, even though it occurs often enough to be for 
most women the rule rather than the exception. At 
some time in their lives, 93.8 per cent of all women marry. 

The first broad classification of vocations in their 
relation to homemaking is: (1) those which are favorable 
to homemaking, (2) those which are unfavorable, (3) those 
which are neutral. 

It must, however, be recognized at the outset that few 
hard-and-fast lines between these groups can be drawn, 
and that "the personal equation" is as important a factor 
here as in most personal questions. It is true, neverthe- 
less, that helpful deductions may be drawn from facts 
which it is possible to gather concerning the physical, 
mental, and moral results of pursuing certain occupations 
as a prelude to marriage and the making of a home. 

In a general way, economic independence, that is, the 
earning of her own living by a girl for several years before 
marriage, tends to increase her knowledge of the value of 
money and to make her a better financial manager. 
Probably this same independence makes a girl slightly 
less anxious to marry, especially since in most cases she 
has hitherto been expected to give up her personal income 
in exchange for an extremely uncertain system of sharing 
what the husband earns. Independence of any sort is 
reluctantly laid aside by those who have possessed it. 
This very reluctance on the part of girls ought to be a 
force in the direction of economic independence of wives, 
a most desirable and necessary condition for society 
to bring about. Gainful occupation has then much to 
recommend it and little to be said against it as part of 
the training for matrimony. 

Certain occupations, however, are so essentially favor- 
able to the girl's homemaking ability and to her probable 
inclination to make a home of her own that we do not 



196 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



hesitate to recommend them as the best directions for 
girls' vocational work to take, other things being equal. 
We have already said that the girl distinctly not home- 
minded is more safely left to her own inclinations. She 
would not be a success as a homemaker under any circum- 
stances. Other girls may be made or marred by the years 
which intervene between their school and home life. 

The value of domestic work of any sort as a preparation 
for homemaking is generally admitted without argument. 
Closely in touch with a home throughout her maturing 
years, the girl may undertake her own housekeeping 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

The value of domestic work of any sort as a preparation for 
homemaking is generally admitted without argument 

problems with ease and efficiency. Conditions as they 
often exist, however, especially for the younger and 
untrained domestic worker, do not allow the girl to obtain 



Vocations as Affecting Homemaking 



197 



other experience quite as necessary if she is to become 
not merely a housekeeper but a true homemaker. The 




Demonstration by teacher in domestic science. Teaching affords 
excellent preparation for the prospective homemaker 

untrained girl who enters upon domestic work at fourteen 
or fifteen should have opportunity — indeed the opportu- 
nity should be thrust upon her — of attending a continua- 
tion school, where the special aim should be to counteract 
the narrowing tendency of work which revolves about so 
small an orbit. Ideals of home life are either lacking or 
distorted in the minds of many working girls, and when 
such girls become wives and mothers they strive for the 
wrong things or they fall back without striving at all, 
taking merely what comes. They fail to be forces for 
good in their family life. 

Teaching and nursing may be grouped together as 
excellent preparation for the prospective homemaker. 
It may be contended that the teacher and the hospital 
nurse spend years outside the home environment and that 



ig8 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



their minds are turned to other problems than those of 
housekeeping. This contention is undoubtedly true; and 
if we were striving merely to make housekeepers, it 
might be worthy of serious consideration. The home, 
however, as we have defined it, is a place in which to 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Women medical students. Physicians and surgeons have unusual 

opportunities for learning by observation and experiment about 

the human relations that will confront them in their own homes 

make people, and both the nurse and the teacher serve 
a long apprenticeship in this sort of manufacture. Expert 
workers in either line concern themselves with the bodies 
and the minds of their pupils or patients. They, together 
with physicians, lawyers, and social workers, have oppor- 
tunities which can scarcely be equaled for learning by 
observation and experiment about the human relations 
that will confront them in their own homes. They 
learn to be resourceful and to meet the emergencies of 



Vocations as Affecting Homemaking 199 

which life is full; they have the advantage of trained 
minds to set to work upon the administrative problems 
which underlie successful home life. 

A question may arise as to the physical fitness for 
marriage and motherhood of the girl who has given her 
nerve force to the exacting and often depleting work of 
nurse, teacher, or physician. It is unquestionably true 
that nurses and teachers do often wear out after com- 
paratively few years at their vocation, although of the 
majority the opposite is true. This merely means that 
conditions surrounding these vocations should be studied 
with a view to their improvement, if necessary, since we 
believe the vocations to be suited to women and women 
to the vocations. 

Office work may prove an excellent training for certain 
phases of homemaking work. Neatness, accuracy, pre- 
cision, the doing again and again of constantly recurring 
tasks, all find their place and use in the housekeeper's 
routine. The calm atmosphere of the well-kept office 
even when typewriters and calculating machines are 
rattling is a better preparation for an orderly home than 
the rush of the department store or the factory. Purely 
routine workers, who put little or no thought into their 
daily tasks, will enter upon homemaking lacking the 
initiative that homemakers need. But the able office 
worker is not merely a follower of routine. The greatest 
lack of office work as preparation for a homemaking 
career is that the girl's interests during so large a part 
of her day are led away from the home and all that 
pertains to it. She works neither with people nor with 
the things which go to make homes. Probably, on the 
whole, office work in a general way may be classed as a 
neutral occupation, which neither adds to, nor reduces, 
in any great degree the girl's possibilities as a homemaker. 

14 



200 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Salesmanship for girls, especially in the great depart- 
ment stores of the cities, is a vocation of at least doubtful 
advantage for the home-minded girl to pursue as a step 
in her training for managing her own home. In the quiet 
of the village store, with few associates in work, and 
with one's neighbors and fellow townsmen for custom- 
ers, salesmanship takes on a somewhat different aspect. 
But the city store means usually hurry, excitement, 
nerve strain, a. long day, with quite probably reaction to 
excessive gayety and hence more nerve strain at night. 
It means spending one's days among great collections of 
finery which tend to assume undue importance in the 
girl's eyes. It means constant association with people 
who spend, until spending seems the only end in life. 
It means almost always pay lower than is consistent with 
decent living if the girl must depend alone upon her own 
earnings. And none of these things tends toward steady, 
skillful, contented wifehood and motherhood in later 
years. This question of underpaid work is of course not 
found alone in the department store. But, wherever it 
is found, we may be sure that it tends on the one hand 
toward marriage as a way of escape from present want, 
and on the other toward inefficiency in the relation so 
lightly assumed. 

The factory girl is in many respects in a position parallel 
to that of the saleswoman. She earns too little to make 
comfortable living possible. She too must leave home 
early and return late, wearied by the monotony of a 
day in uninteresting surroundings, with neither energy 
nor inclination for anything other than complete relax- 
ation and "fun." This desire for relaxation leads her 
often away from a crowded, ill-supported home in the 
evenings, until the habit settles into a confirmed dis- 
position. This is a decided handicap for a homemaker. 



Vocations as Affecting Homemaking 201 

Coupled with the mental inertia resulting from years 
of mechanical work without thought, it provides poor 
material from which to make steady, responsible, efficient 
women. We have already noted, however, that factories 
differ widely. It follows of necessity that the girls who 
work in them come from their work with all grades of 
ability. 

The actress, the artist, and the literary woman are 
usually spoken of as far removed from the true domestic 
type. This I cannot believe to be true, except in indi- 
vidual cases. All these women, as makers of finished 
products, stand far nearer to the traditional type of 
woman than many others we might name. The life of 
the actress tends more than the others perhaps to break 
home ties, but in the case of real talent in any direc- 
tion ordinary rules do not apply. The actress, the 
artist, and the writer are much more likely to carry on 
their work after marriage than the teacher, the office 
worker, or even the factory woman. Many of them suc- 
ceed to a remarkable degree in doing two things well. 
Many more, of course, are less successful, but we must 
not overlook the fact that the failures are more noised 
abroad than the successes. 

It is a matter for regret that most women, upon leav- 
ing an industrial career for marriage, drop so completely 
out of touch with their former work. In the case of the 
untrained woman, who has received little and given 
little in her work, it is a matter of no moment; but 
when years have been given to skilled labor, it is eco- 
nomic waste to have the skill lost and the process for- 
gotten. Many times the woman finds herself after a 
short life in the home obliged to earn a living once more 
for herself or it may be for a family. She returns to 
her teaching or her office work or a position in the library ; 



202 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

but she is no longer, at least for a considerable time, the 
expert she once was. Why should not the former teacher 
keep up her interest in educational literature and the 
new ideas in what might have been her life work? Would 
it not be well for the one-time stenographer to keep a 
gentle hold upon the quirks and quirls which once brought 
to her her weekly salary? A young mother of my 
acquaintance, who was a concert violinist of much 
ability has found no time for more than a year to practice, 
" since baby came," and thousands of -dollars spent in 
making her a player are being thrown away. To some 
this might seem the right thing. She has found "the 
home her sphere." To others it seems a serious waste. 
We advocate often that the middle-aged woman who has 
reared her children should return in some way to the 
work of the world outside the home. In the case of the 
trained woman her training should be made of use in 
such return. She should, however, beware lest her tools 
are rusty from disuse. 

We may not perhaps leave the questions involved in 
a discussion of vocations as they affect homemaking 
without noticing that certain occupations are considered 
especially dangerous to the moral stability of girls. 
Nursing, private secretaryship, and domestic service pre- 
sent dangers in direct proportion as they bring about 
isolated companionship for the girl and a male employer. 
Girls must not enter these employments without the 
knowledge of how to protect themselves from lowering 
influences. 



CHAPTER XIII 

The Girl's Work (Continued) — Vocations Deter- 
mined by Training 

THE question of vocation choosing begins to make itself 
felt far down in the grammar school, first among 
the retarded and backward children who are old for 
their grades and are merely waiting and marking time 
until the law will allow them to leave school and go to 
work. These children are usually either mentally sub- 
normal or handicapped by foreign birth and so unable 
to grasp the education which is being offered them. 

As soon as they are released the girls go to the factory, 
to the store, or to help with some one's baby or with the 
housework. No other places are open to them, and their 
possibilities in any place are few. They cannot rise 
because they are mentally untrained. 

The upper grades of the grammar school lose annually 
many children who would be able to profit by the help 
the school offers to those who can remain. Some drop 
out because they see no need of remaining when the factory 
will employ them without further knowledge. Others 
chafe at spending time on what seems to them, and what 
sometimes is, quite unrelated to the life they will lead 
and the work they will do. Some leave reluctantly, 
because their help is needed in financing a large family. 
Many go gladly, because they will begin to earn and to 
have some of the things they ardently desire. And 
until yesterday the school paid little attention to their 
going, regarding it as one of the necessary evils. Still 
less attention did it pay to what these pupils became 

203 



204 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

after they left. The school's responsibility ended at 
its outer door. 

Now that these conditions are being changed, the school 
is finding responsibilities and opportunities on every hand. 
The foreign-born are taken out of the regular grades where 
they cannot fit, and are taught English by themselves 
first of all. The subnormal children are studied for 
latent vocational possibilities, and where minds are 
deficient, hands are the more carefully trained for suit- 
able work. Courses are being revised with a view to 
holding in school the boy or girl who wants practical 
training for practical work. Secondary schools have 
taken their eyes off college requirements long enough to 
consider fitting the majority of their pupils to face life 
without the college. Studies of vocations are being made; 
vocational training is being offered; vocational guidance 
is at last coming to be considered the concern of the 
school. 

Vocational work is sometimes concentrated in the high 
school, but this is reaching back scarcely far enough, 
since those who do not reach high school need help quite 
as much as the older ones, while those who expect to 
continue their training can do so better if they have some 
idea of the goal to be reached. 

What are the options that the grammar-school teacher 
may present to the girls under her care? 

First of all, as we have already said, the school records 
must be kept with care and discrimination, so that the 
teacher may know the girl to whom she speaks. With 
the records in hand, she will ask herself the following 
questions : 

i. Is further training at the expense of the girl's family 
possible? Do the girl's abilities warrant effort on her 
parents' part to give her further opportunity? 



Vocations Determined by Training 



205 



2. Could the girl's parents continue to pay her living 
expenses during further training if the training were 
furnished at the expense of the state ? 

3. Could the girl obtain training in return for her per- 
sonal service, either with or without pay? 

4. Would the girl be able to repay in skill acquired 
the expense of her training, whether borne by herself, her 
parents, or the state? 

Lines between obtainable work for the trained and the 
untrained girl are fairly sharply drawn, and the possibili- 
ties for each type must be clearly understood by the 
guide. If it is evident that training cannot be obtained 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

A flower-making class for girls of various ages. There is no reason 
why vocational work should not begin in the grammar school 

before the girl must begin to earn, the choice is necessarily 
a narrow one. The factories in the neighborhood should be 
thoroughly studied, and, under the guidance of the teacher, 
girls should prepare detailed reports with respect to their 



206 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



working conditions. The "blind-alley" job should be 
plainly labeled, that it may not catch the girl unaware. 
Girls who must take up factory work should at least be 
enabled to choose among factories intelligently, and if 
possible should be fortified with an avocation that will 




Millinery class in a trade school. Where trade schools do not 

offer such training, there are opportunities for apprentice 

work for girls 

supply them with the interest their daily task fails to 
inspire and that will provide an anchor against the insta- 
bility toward which the factory girl tends. 

The possibilities for apprentice work with dressmakers 
or milliners or in other handwork should also be made 
known. Girls begin here, as in the factory, at simple and 
monotonous tasks, but the possibilities of advancement 
are far greater and mental development is unquestionably 
more likely. The ability acquired by such workers, as 
they progress, to undertake and carry through a complete 



Vocations Determined by Training 207 

piece of work is not only satisfying to the workers them- 
selves, but of value in later years. They learn to analyze 
their constructive problems and to work out the various 
steps of the work to its ultimate conclusion — a knowledge 
which the factory girl never attains. 

Some few girls will need to be shown the possibilities 
which lie in independent productive work. For the girl 
who has talent or even merely deftness in manual work, 
coupled with initiative and some degree of originality, 
such work may bring a better return than working for 
others. Most girls, however, lack courage to start upon 
independent work, especially if they are in immediate 
need of earning and are untrained. It often happens, 
however, that they do not appraise at its true value the 
training they have received. The grammar-school girl, 
under present methods of teaching, is often fully qualified 
to do either plain cooking or plain sewing, but since she 
does not desire to enter domestic service, she considers 
these accomplishments very little or not at all in counting 
her assets for earning. Some girls have found ready 
employment and good returns in home baking, in canning 
fruit and vegetables, or in mending, making simple clothes 
for little children, or in making buttonholes and doing 
other ' 'finishing work" for busy housewives. Work of 
these sorts, undertaken in a small way, has often assumed 
the proportions of a business, requiring all of a young 
woman's time and paying her quite as well as and often 
better than less interesting work in shop or factory. A girl 
of my acquaintance earns a comfortable living at home 
with her crochet needle. Another has paid her way 
through high school and college by raising sweet peas. 

The untrained girl who loves an outdoor life has fewer 
opportunities than other girls unless she is capable of 
independent work. If she is capable of this and has 



208 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



sufficient ability to study her work, gardening and poultry 
or bee culture may open the way for her to work and be 




Courtesy of U.S. Department of Agriculture 

Some girls have built up a good business canning fruits and 
vegetables at home 

happy. School gardens, poultry clubs, and canning clubs 
have shown many a girl what she may do in these ways. 
Many times too little is realized of the possibilities of 
these grammar-school girls who are crowded by necessity 
into the working ranks. We cannot shirk our responsi- 
bilities in regard to them, however, although they escape 
from our school systems and bravely take up the burden 
of their own lives. Quite as many of these girls as of more 
favored ones will marry and be among the mothers of 
the next generation. The work they do in the interval 
between school and home will leave its impress even more 
strongly than upon the girl whose school life lasts longer 
and who is therefore older as well as better equipped when 



Vocations Determined by Training 



209 



she enters upon her work. Few of these younger girls in 
times past can be said to have done anything other than 
drift into work which would make or spoil their lives and 
perhaps those of their children after them. It is well that 
the responsibility of the school toward them is being 
recognized and met. 

A distinct duty of the grammar-school teacher is to 
make known the facts concerning short cuts for grammar- 
school girls to office work. Unscrupulous business 
" colleges" sometimes mislead these immature girls into 
believing that a short course taken in their school will 
enable the girls to fill office positions. Facts are at hand 
which show the futility of attempting office work under 




A prosperous poultry farm. Poultry farming opens the way 

for the girl who loves an outdoor life to work in the 

open and be happy 

such conditions, and teachers should be very careful to 
see that all the facts are in the possession of their pupils. 
In the early days of high schools usually the only dis- 
tinction, if any, in courses was "general" and "classical." 



210 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



To-day we have many courses, or in the larger cities 
different schools fit boys and girls for varying paths 
in life. The college-preparatory course or the classical 
high school leads to college. The commercial course or 
school leads to office work. The manual training or 




Benson Polytechnic School for Girls, Portland, Oregon. The 

trade school leads to definite occupations. The girl with 

mechanical ability may find her vocation in millinery, 

dressmaking, or the various sewing-machine trades 

industrial or practical arts course or high school leads to 
efficient handwork. The trade school leads to definite 
occupations. The difficulty now is to help girls choose 
intelligently which course or school will best meet their 
requirements. This involves vocation study in the 
grammar school. 

The girl who terminates her formal education with her 
graduation from high school may find herself not very 
much better placed, apparently, than the girl who has 
dropped out of school farther back. Many openings 



Vocations Determined by Training 211 

into desirable occupations are still closed to her. Often 
her opportunities, however, are much greater than they 
seem. All facts go to show that the high-school girl makes 
more rapid progress in efficiency, and therefore in pay, 
than the younger girl, even when she seems to begin at the 
same work. Some fields, too, are open to her that are not 
usually possible for the grammar-school girl. In office 
work the high-school girl who has specialized in her 
training may make a very creditable showing. Many 
thousands of high-school graduates are received into 
telephone exchanges where with a brief period of practice 
they become efficient workers. A very few high-school 
girls become teachers in country schools without further 
training, but the number is decreasing every year. If 
she meets the age requirement, the high-school girl may 
enter a training school for nurses, gaining her specialized 
training in return for her services to the hospital. 

The high-school girl who can spare time and money for 
some further training finds a larger field open; but, to 
make the most of what high school has to offer, her plans 
should be made as early as possible in the high-school 
course — at the very beginning if it can be managed. The 
girl must know what further training she is making ready 
for, must choose electives in high school to help her make 
ready, or possibly to offset the specializing of this later 
work by some general culture she may otherwise miss 
entirely. Vocation study, therefore, and vocational 
guidance must be quite as much a part of the course for 
the girl who will ' 'train' ' for her special work as for the 
girl who goes directly from the secondary school to her 
vocation. 

One high-school Senior writes: ''My special vocation 
has not yet been chosen, but if it becomes necessary for 
me to earn my own living I should like to be either a nurse, 



212 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

a teacher, milliner, or director of a cafeteria. I would 
probably choose the position that was open at the time. ,, 

Here we have the girl who is in no hurry to choose, and 
who probably has a more or less vague notion of the com- 
parative conditions, requirements, and rewards of the four 
vocations she mentions. In contrast to this, listen to a 
high-school student who has been studying herself and 
her possible vocation in much detail in class work. She 
says: "I find that I have made good school records only 
in subjects where I had materials I could see and handle. 
I have never done well in arithmetic or mathematics, but 
in drawing, physics, elementary biology, and domestic 
science I made good marks. I do not like to sew, because 
it tires me to sit still. I enjoy cooking and marketing. 

"I like to plan meals and to make up new recipes. I 
hear that hospitals and institutions employ women at 
very good salaries to buy all the foodstuffs used in their 
kitchens. The expert dietitian also plans meals and 
arranges dietaries. I learn that Teachers College, 
Columbia, has courses of study leading to this profession, 
and I have written to ask for full information.' ' 

In the class of which this girl is a member, each girl is 
considering her future as this one is doing. Each gathers 
all available data in regard to the vocation she is studying. 
Her reports become a part of the class records. She makes 
as full a report as possible as to the duties and responsi- 
bilities of the occupation, the schools or training classes 
that prepare for it, the length and cost of preparation, 
possibilities of employment, salaries paid, and other 
details. 

Since training cannot alter fundamentals, but merely 
builds upon the girl's nature and heredity, the same classi- 
fications obtain in the choice of the girl who can have 
training as in that of the girl who goes untrained to her 



Vocations Determined by Training 213 

vocation. There are still the producers, the distributors, 
and those who serve ; and it is still important that the girl 
should find a place in the right group. 

The producers will include the designers, the interior 
decorators, the expert dietitians, the municipal inspectors 
of food and housing, rural consulting housekeepers, state 
or country canning-club agents, the women who organize 
and carry on model laundries, either cooperative or other- 
wise, the managers of manufacturing enterprises, the 
farmers, the photographers, the artists, the journalists, 
and the authors. 

The distributors are chiefly represented by the higher 
type of office workers, w T ho are the "idea thinkers" of 
the business world, since they neither make nor handle 
products, but merely manipulate the symbols which stand 
for the products they seldom if ever see. The women 
who manage buying and selling enterprises for themselves 
usually belong to the trained group. 

The service group among trained women is a large 
one, including nurses, teachers, d6ctors' and dentists' 
assistants, various social workers, librarians, secretaries 
and other confidential office assistants, directors or 
"house mothers" in school and college dormitories and 
in institutions, dentists, physicians, lawyers, ministers. 

Within the group there is wide range of choice, differ- 
ing qualifications are necessary, and varying training is 
to be undertaken. Girls, with the help of a vocational 
expert, should analyze their physical and mental qualities 
and habits, and should study somewhat exhaustively 
the vocation for which they seem to find themselves fitted. 

" I should like to be a nurse, or a teacher, or a milliner, 
or the manager of a cafeteria" will not do, since those 
vocations presuppose some years of widely differing 
training. Perhaps the girl will narrow the choice to 



214 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



nursing or teaching. Then she must place over against 
each other the two professions — special qualifications 













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Photograph by Brown Bros. 

The children'' s ward in a hospital. The nurse must be resourceful 
and possess good judgment 

required, length and cost of training, personal obstacles 
to be overcome, and especially the demand and supply 
of nurses and teachers in her locality. Upon these 
depends the girl's chance to succeed when she is fitted 
and launched. 

The student who takes up college work, not as a special- 
ized training, but as a completion of her general education, 
stands somewhat by herself. Such a girl may perhaps 
put off vocational decision until she is part way through 
her college years. The college sometimes awakens 
ambitions and brings to light abilities not hitherto dis- 
covered; and even when this does not occur, the choice 
may be made from the highest and most responsible 
positions filled by women. From the college girls we 
draw our high-school teachers and college instructors, 



Vocations Determined by Training 



215 



our doctors, lawyers, and preachers, in so far as these 
professions are filled by women. 

We are confronted by the statement, made again and 
again and reinforced by formidable rows of figures, that 
the more training a girl receives, the less she is inclined 
to marry or, if she does marry, to have children. The 
fact seems undeniable that in our larger eastern women's 
colleges, at least, not more than half the graduates marry 
up to the age of forty, which we may accept as the prob- 
able limit of the marriage age for the average woman. 
The natural inference is that a college education in some 
way prevents or discourages marriage. This may or 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 



Among 



many vocations belonging to the service group teaching 
is one of the most popular 



may not be true. To be quite fair, the statistics should 
cover the coeducational colleges as well as the colleges 
for women alone. Also some attempt should be made to 

15 



2l6 



Vocational Guidance for Girls 



discover how the likelihood of marriage is affected by the 
age at which girls finish their college course. Do the 
younger girls of a college class marry, while the older ones 
do not? Are the younger married graduates more often 
mothers than the older ones, or do they have more children ? 




Photograph by Brown Bros. 

The influence of the librarian extends far beyond the walls 
of the library 

If it is true that training is interfering with marriage 
and motherhood for our girls, the next step is not neces- 
sarily, as some modern hysterical students of the question 
seem to suggest, that we immediately cut out the training 
which, in case they do marry, will make them far more 
valuable wives, mothers, and members of the community; 
but rather so to time and place the training, and if neces- 
sary so to alter its character, that any such tendency 
away from marriage will be removed and that the trained 
women of the college and professional school shall be 
available for the great work of mothering the nation of 
the future. 



Vocations Determined by Training 2 1 7 

A final word as to the place of the vocational guide 
in the choosing of vocations may not be amiss. That 
every teacher should consider himself or herself a helper 
in this most important work we must agree; but that 
any teacher must walk carefully, and use the guiding 
hand but sparingly, is equally true. 

The object of vocational help is not merely to keep 
the " square peg" out of the "round hole." The girl 
arbitrarily placed in a suitable occupation may never 
discover why she is there, and may be handicapped all 
her life by a deep conviction that she fits somewhere 
else. "Know thyself" is a good old maxim yet. The 
teacher or vocational guide is fitted by the place of obser- 
vation she holds to help the girl to study herself and the 
possibilities that life holds out to such as she thus finds 
herself to be. The final choice should be made by the girl. 



CHAPTER XIV 
Marriage 

MARRIAGE may, or may not, in these days, be 
the opening door into the homemaker's career. 
Many a young woman is a homemaker before she marries. 
On the other hand, women sometimes marry without any 
thought of making a home. 

But, after all, it is safe to assume that marriage and 
homemaking do go hand in hand. The great majority 
of wives become managers of homes of one sort or another. 
Shall we then frankly educate our girls for marriage — 
" dangle a wedding ring ever before their eyes " ? Or shall 
we regard marriages as "made in heaven" and keep our 
hands off the whole matter? 

The proportion of marriages in the United States 
which terminate in divorce was in 19 10 one in twelve. 
Divorce in this country is now three times as common 
as forty years ago. The success or failure of marriages 
cannot, however, be measured merely by the divorce 
test. We cannot avoid the knowledge that many other 
unhappy unions are endured until release comes with 
death. When we say unhappy marriages, we mean not 
only those which become unendurable, but all those in 
which marriage impedes the development and hence the 
efficiency of either party to the contract. Unhappy 
marriages include not only the mismated, but also those 
whose unhappiness in married life is due to their own 
or their mate's misconception of what marriage really 
means. It is obviously impossible even to estimate the 
number of marriages which are happy or unhappy; but 
we are safe in saying that the processes of adjustment 

218 



Marriage 219 

in many cases are far harder than they ought to be, and 
that many marriages which seemingly ought to bring 
happiness fail of real success. 

In view of the fact that so many marriages fall short 
of what they might be, it would seem that some sort of 
assistance to the girl in choosing a husband and to the 
young man in choosing a wife would be wise, such as 
the instruction w T e give boys and girls to enable them to 
be successful in the industrial world. In short, it is not 
enough to prepare girls for homemaking by making all our 
references to marriage indirect. Young men and women 
are entitled to more knowledge of marriage, its rights, 
privileges, and duties; they need to realize that in these 
days of complex living marriage is a difficult relation 
which requires their best energies and wisest thought. 

The modern marriage differs from the marriage of 
earlier centuries in direct proportion as the status of 
woman has changed. The ancient marriage, and indeed 
the medieval one, and the marriage of our own grand- 
mother's time began w T ith submission and usually ended 
with subjection. But i:he modern marriage at its best is a 
spiritual and material partnership. It is the modern mar- 
riage at its best and otherwise with which we have to do. 

Half a century ago girls married at eighteen or even 
earlier, took charge of their households, were mothers of 
good-sized families at twenty-eight or thirty, and were 
frequently grandmothers at forty. 

Nowadays early marriage is the exception. For years 
the marriage age has been steadily rising, until some 
students profess to be alarmed at a prospect of marriage 
disappearing, the maternal instinct becoming lost by 
disuse, and the race finally becoming extinct. However, 
the maximum marriage age, at least for the present, seems 
to have been reached, and statistics show a slight dropping 
within the last two or three years. 



220 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

The forces operating to fix the marriage age are exceed- 
ingly complex. The higher education of girls has 
undoubtedly been a large factor in the postponement 
of marriage. Its effect has been wrought in a variety of 
ways. The increasing years in schoolroom and lecture 
hall have been directly responsible in many cases. The 
ambitions aroused account for many more. The increased 
ability of girls to earn their own living and public accept- 
ance of their doing so have practically removed "marriage 
as a trade" from the consideration of girls and their 
parents. Girls no longer need to marry in order to trans- 
fer the burden of their support from father to husband. 
Instead they may "go to work." And once at work 
they are often reluctant to give up a personal income 
for the uncertainties of sharing what a husband earns. 
Then, too, the broadening effect of education makes 
marriage in the abstract a less absorbing, momentous 
subject for the girl's thoughts. Also the rebound toward 
selfishness coincident with woman's "emancipation" leads 
girls to put off what they are sometimes led to consider 
a sacrifice of themselves. The tragedies of the divorce 
courts are directly responsible for many a girlish deter- 
mination not to marry, a determination which is broken 
only when the first zest of mature life has passed and when 
the woman begins to long for the home ties she has 
resolved to deny herself and decides to take the risk. 
The increased cost of living and the ever-increasing 
responsibilities of rearing, educating, and launching a 
family of children lead many young people to postpone 
marriage until they can command a larger income. The 
strain of modern industrial life, with its fierce competi- 
tions and its early discard of the elderly and unfit, finds 
many girls who would otherwise marry burdened with the 
care of parents who can ill spare the daughter's help. 









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The Halliday Historic Photograph Co. 

Louisa M. Alcott 

Miss Alcott 1 s lifelong devotion to the interests of her family is a well- 
known story. She made a happy home for them, and at the same time 
attained marked success in the literary field 



222 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

If all these obstacles to early marriage could be over- 
come, the question of the wisest time for marrying might 
be approached fairly and squarely on its merits. 

Too early marriage means immaturity in choice, with 
the possibility always of unfortunate mistakes and sad 
awakening. Too late marriage, on the other hand, 
means settled convictions which often result in that 
incompatibility which seeks relief in divorce. The plasti- 
city of youth at least promises adaptability. The mature 
judgment of later years ought to afford a wise choice. 
Between extreme youth then and a too settled maturity 
is the wise time. 

In order to approach the ideal in the marriage relation, 
the time of marriage should be so placed that the girl is 
(i) physically fit, (2) fully educated, (3) broadened by 
some experience with the world. 

She must not be too old to bear children safely, or to 
rear them sympathetically as they approach the difficult 
years. She must not be physically worn by excessive 
industrial service, nor with enthusiasms burned out by the 
same cause. Probably between twenty-two and twenty- 
five the girl reaches the height of physical fitness. She 
may also by that time have completed a liberal edu- 
cation, and she may even have done that and also have 
put her training to useful service. It would be better if 
girls completed their college courses earlier than most do. 
However, since the great majority of girls do not have a 
college education, the generally increased age of marriage 
cannot rightfully be laid, as many seem to lay it, at the 
doors of the college women. Schemes of education in the 
future will undoubtedly try to remedy the defect of pres- 
ent systems in this respect. If most girls could finish 
their training in college or professional school at twenty, as 
some do now, the world would be rewarded by earlier 




Photograph by Paul Thompson 

Ruth McEnery Stuart 

Mrs. Stuart was one of those in whom the talent for homemaking and 
the talent for creative literary work existed side by side. On her hus- 
band's plantation in Arkansas she found many of the types for the 
characters in her stories 



224 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

marriages and probably more of them. There would be 
more children, reared by younger and more enthusiastic 
mothers. The more difficult professions, which could not 
be successfully undertaken by the girl of twenty, would 
then be reserved, as they generally are now, for the 
women whose ambition is unusually strong and absorbing. 
Attempts are frequently made to show that ambition is 
becoming an inordinately prominent quality in all women, 
but there are few facts to support so wide a contention. 

The girl graduate of twenty, reinforced by from two to 
five years of work in the vocation she has chosen, is usually 
fit, physically and mentally, for marriage. More than 
that, she may by that age, usually, be trusted to know 
what she wants, even in a husband, if she is ever going to 
know. 

In the day when girls married nearly always "in their 
teens," wise choice of a husband called for selection of a 
man considerably older than the girl herself. This dis- 
parity is less common in these days, and is really less 
desirable than it once was. The girl of the earlier time 
reached maturity of mind earlier than the girl of to-day 
with her prolonged education, and much earlier than the 
boy of her day did. He was still being educated in school 
or as an apprentice, and was hardly ready to undertake 
the responsibility of a family at an age when the girl's 
scanty education was long since completed and it was 
considered high time that her support was laid upon a 
husband's shoulders. 

It used to be said, "Men keep their youth better than 
women," so that any disparity in age at the time of mar- 
riage was soon lost. This is no longer true as it was once. 
The early marriage, with early and excessive childbearing, 
overwork, and the numerous restrictions that custom laid 
upon her, were responsible for woman's loss of youth. 







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226 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

These conditions no longer exist. The woman of forty 
or fifty can now usually hold her own with the man of her 
own age in point of youth. 

Another consideration in favor of more nearly equal age 
lies in the fact that formerly men did not look for wives 
who were their mental equals. They did not really desire 
mental equals as wives. To-day they do, or, if there still 
lingers in the minds of some of them the old notion that 
wives must be clinging vines, the lingering notion will 
soon be gone. The marriage of equality possesses too 
many advantages for both parties to be thrown aside. 
The wife who can think, who is mature enough to be 
capable of real partnership, is the wife surely of to-morrow, 
if not of to-day. 

Among the forces that control marriage may be men- 
tioned (i) physical attraction, (2) continued social rela- 
tionships, (3) dissimilarity, (4) affection, (5) barter. 

It is usually difficult to say of any marriage that any 
one of these forces alone caused the mating. It may have 
been physical attraction together with everyday com- 
panionship; or physical attraction and dissimilarity or 
strangeness, resulting in what we know as love at first 
sight. Or it may have been affection of slow growth, or 
affection with an element of appreciation of worldly 
advantage, or it may have been a little physical attraction 
with a great deal of desire for social position or wealth, 
or, ugliest of all, it may have been pure barter, without 
personal attraction of any sort. For these worldy advan- 
tages you offer, I will sell you my body and my soul. 

To secure the finest marriages for girls we must insure 
three conditions: (1) high ideals of marriage among our 
adolescents, (2) better knowledge of men, and (3) wise 
companionships during the years from fourteen to twenty- 
five. 




Margaret Junkin Preston 

The South is justly proud of this poet of no mean rank who gave 
herself unstintedly to her home duties and responsibilities 



228 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Physical attraction on one or both sides is undoubtedly 
the greatest force in marriage selection. It is only when 
physical attraction exerts its influence upon a girl whose 
ideal of a husband is low or vague or incorrect that the 
danger is great. Physical attraction is not love, but it 
may be — often it is — the basis of love when it exists 
between two who are suited to a life together. 

Generally speaking, girls will find married life easier, 
and their husbands will find life more satisfactory, when 
the two have been reared with approximately the same 
ideals. The girl who falls in love with a man largely 
because he is " different" from the boys among whom she 
has grown up often finds that very difference a stumbling 
block to domestic happiness. Marriages across such 
chasms where there should be common ground are more 
hazardous than between those whose education, social 
training, friends, and beliefs are of the same type. When 
they do succeed, they undoubtedly are the richer for the 
variety of experience husband and wife have to give each 
other; and, too, they show an adaptability on the part of 
one or both which argues well for continued happiness. 
Commonly, however, they do not succeed. 

There are, also, deeper matters than these to be con- 
sidered. Is this man or this woman worthy of lifelong 
devotion? Is the love he offers or she offers in return for 
the love you offer, the love that gives or the love that 
merely takes? Has he been a success at something, any- 
thing, that counts? Has he a sense of responsibility in 
marriage and the burdens it brings? Does he desire a 
home? Do his views as to children reflect man's natural 
desire to found a family or merely the selfish desire for the 
freedom and luxury which the absence of children may 
make possible? Has he a right to approach fatherhood — 
is his body physically and morally clean? 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt with Members of Their Family 

Colonel Roosevelt's own family was preeminently one in which the 
father shared with the mother a keen sense of the responsibilities of 
marriage and the highest ideals of home life 



230 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

These are serious questions with which to weight the 
wings of a young man's or a young woman's fancy. But 
the attraction which cannot stand before them is not safe 
as a basis for marriage. Many a young man or woman 
has willfully turned closed eyes to the selfishness or the 
irresponsibility which will later wreck a home, because 
attraction blinded common sense. 

Barter, the lowest form of marriage, exists and has 
always existed whenever the material benefits that either 
husband or wife expects to derive from the connection 
are the impelling forces in the union. The woman desires 
wealth, social position, a title — or perhaps nothing more 
than security from poverty or the necessity of work out- 
side the home, or perhaps no more than the mere security 
of a home itself. The man in other cases desires wealth, 
or social position, or a wife who will grace his fine home, 
or some business connection which the marriage will 
afford. And upon these things men and women build, 
or attempt to build, the foundations of home life. 

It is not true of course that every girl of moderate 
means, or without means, who marries a man of wealth 
does so because of his money. Nor is it always true when 
the cases are reversed. Love may be as real between those 
two as between any others. But when it is true that the 
marriage is an exchange of commodities, it is no different 
from prostitution under other circumstances. In fact, 
it is prostitution under cover, without acceptance of the 
stigma which for centuries has been the portion of volun- 
tary selling of the body to him who cares to buy. 

Eugenics, a modern science which aims at race regen- 
eration, lays down many laws and restrictions for those 
who are selecting their mates. By the following of these 
laws and restrictions in the selection of husbands and 
wives, undesirable traits in the offspring are to be weeded 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Julia Ward Howe and Her Granddaughter 

In the life of Mrs. Howe was exemplified the identity of ideals of 
husband and wife. They worked side by side in the literary field and 
in their philanthropic and reform work 



16 



232 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

but and desirable ones are to be fostered and increased. 
That these laws should be studied with the care used by 
breeders of plants and animals goes without saying. That 
if they are followed strictly the number of marriages would 
be materially reduced, at least for a considerable time, is 
doubtless true. That marriages in which eugenics has 
played the major part in selection will present new prob- 
lems is probably equally true. If marriages were mere 
temporary unions, for the purpose of obtaining offspring, 
eugenic principles could not be too exactly nor too coldly 
applied to the selection of mates. But since marriage 
implies living together and becoming, or continuing to be, 
worthy members of the community, and since the offspring 
are fashioned no less by the conditions of their upbringing 
than by heredity, selection of mates must involve more 
jthan looking for eugenically perfect fathers and mothers 
for the generations yet unborn. Eugenics, however, is in 
infancy as a science, and, like the human infants it would 
protect, must react to the environment in which it finds 
litself and must feel the chastening hand of time before its 
value can be known. Agitation in the direction of allow- 
ing posterity to be 'Veil born" can never be out of place. 
What being well born is and how it shall be attained is 
a worthy subject of research. As a cold, exact science, 
however, eugenics can never hope for application without 
some consideration of the personal equation which makes 
marriage at its best not a mating merely, but a joining of 
souls. 

Choosing a husband or a wife is, after all, merely the 
beginning of the marriage problem. Good husbands are 
not discovered, but made, from originally good or perhaps 
indifferent or in rare cases from even poor material, by 
the reaction of married life upon what was previously 
mere "man." Even so with wives. 



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Caroline Bartlett Crane 

Mrs. Crane, an expert on sanitation, has successfully applied the 
principles of good housekeeping to civic affairs in many cities, and 
has thus made women more of a factor in the community at large 



234 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

The successful marriage presupposes unselfishness, even 
carried if necessary to the point of sacrifice, but it must 
be unselfishness for two, not for one alone. Neither the 
1 'child wife" who must be carried as a burden, nor the 
complacent husband who forms the center of a smoothly 
revolving little world patiently turned by a silent wife, 
has any part in the marriage of equality — the only 
marriage worthy of the name. 

The successful marriage calls also for freedom — again 
for two. Women sometimes hesitate to marry because 
the old idea of marriage involved loss of individuality, 
and they have little faith in men's readiness to accept 
any other idea. Men, on the other hand, fear to marry 
because the "new woman" demands so much for herself — 
development, a career, a chance to work out her own 
ideals of life. The man sees little in this for himself but 
the "second fiddle" which woman for centuries played 
to his first. Ideal marriages, however, do take place 
in which there is no sacrifice of personality — in which, 
indeed, each lives a fuller life than would have been 
possible without the marriage. For this to be realized, 
there must be full recognition of the responsibility of 
each for his or her own deeds, and a standing aside while 
each works out his destiny. This does not mean a sepa- 
ration of interests nor an abandonment of common 
counsel. It means merely that in individual matters 
each must have the freedom enjoyed before marriage 
took place. It must mean for women some sort of 
economic independence, and in addition a spiritual 
independence such as men enjoy. When this freedom is 
cheerfully given, and in return the wife gives a like liberty 
to the husband, the great incentive to concealments and 
deceptions or to nagging and controversy is removed. 
The petty annoyances of the day are lessened, trust is 




Courtesy of George Herbert PalmeT 

Alice Freeman Palmer 

Mrs. Palmer's was one of the ideal marriages in which husband and 
wife each lived a fuller life than would have been possible without the 
marriage. Happy in her home life, Mrs. Palmer yet had time to 
achieve a brilliant success in administrative educational work 



236 ^Vocational Guidance for Girls" 

increased, and both man and woman find their strength 
increased rather than depleted by the relation. 

Common interests are an almost certain safeguard in 
most marriages. Common duties are more often than 
not a source of difficulty. An untold number of matri- 
monial ventures fail because of inadequate responsibility 
in adjustment .of expenses to income. Many more are 
rendered inharmonious by failure of parents to agree as 
to the management of children. In both these directions 
increased knowledge will do much to secure harmonious 
action. Family traditions are more than likely to clash 
when they are adopted as principles of family discipline. 
"Children must mind, ,, says the father, in memory and 
emulation of his father's method with him. " Children 
must not be coerced,' ' says the mother, who has been 
reared by a different method. Clearly a course in child 
psychology would have been of value to these parents in 
determining a common procedure. There is probably no 
subject upon which either father or mother finds it so 
hard to yield to the other's way as upon this. Each 
feels, and rightly, that the material to be trained is so 
precious, and that failure, if it comes, will be so stupen- 
dous, that neither dares do what seems wrong to his own 
mind. Nothing but common knowledge and a pre- 
determined policy can solve this problem so near to the 
root of success or failure in marriage itself. 

Girls are commonly taught too little of the duties of 
married women to their husbands. They look for a life- 
time of unalloyed bliss. If they fail to realize their 
impossible dream, they turn their faces toward the 
divorce court. Many girls have had too smooth a 
pathway, too little of responsibility, and too little of 
disappointment, before undertaking the serious duty of 
establishing and maintaining a lifelong partnership. 





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Amelia E. Barr 

Far from interfering with her career, Mrs. Barr 's home interests were 
the inspiration for it. Thrown on her own resources by the death of her 
husband, who sacrificed himself in a yellow fever epidemic in Texas, 
Mrs. Barr took up writing to make a living for her children 



238 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

fc 
There has been little in their lives to prepare them for 

long-continued relations of any sort. On the other hand, 

the same girls have equally little idea of what they have 

a right to expect of marriage for themselves. Much of 

the necessary adjustment is left to chance. 

Scarcely any phase of woman's part in marriage is 
arousing more attention at present than the question of 
childbearing. Women, and especially educated women, 
are accused of sterility or of intentionally avoiding 
motherhood. They are said to believe that children 
interfere with their careers, that they can render greater 
service to the world in public work than in childbearing. 
They " prefer idleness and luxury to the care of a family." 
The " maternal instinct is fading." They threaten us 
with "race suicide," the "extinction of mankind," a 
silent world given over to dumb beasts who have not 
yet learned the principles of "birth control" and "family 
limitation." Thus on the one hand. 

On the other: "The world is better served by the small 
family well reared than by the large one necessarily less 
well cared for." "Women are not merely the instruments 
of nature for multiplying mankind. They have a right 
to some time for living their own lives." "The maternal 
instinct has not faded, but merely come under control 
of a wisdom which directs that it shall not bring forth 
what it cannot care for." 

And so on, with added arguments for either side. 

In all these discussions of birth control the fathers or 
the husbands who desire not to be fathers are usually 
left in the background. As a matter of fact, however, men 
as well as women desire luxury and freedom from the care 
of a family. It is a general sign of the times, not a 
characteristic of one sex alone. Men as well as women 
fear for their ability to care for and educate large families. 



Marriage 239 

With the demands of our present complex existence bear- 
ing heavily upon them, one can scarcely wonder at the 
hesitation of either man or woman to add again and 
again to their already pressing cares. There is but one 
remedy — not to cut off education for women, as some 
suggest, but to learn the joys of a simpler life which will 
afford people time and strength and means to bear and 
rear their young. To this end let us teach our girls and 
our boys something of the essentials of a useful and a 
happy life, and teach them how to eliminate the non- 
essentials which waste their time and spirit. 

Who can best instruct the girl in what we may call 
the ethics of marriage? Her mother? Usually the 
mother's viewpoint is too personal. Her teacher? Most 
of her teachers are unmarried and know little more about 
the subject than she does herself. A specially selected 
married teacher? Perhaps, but only if she is a deep 
student of human nature and of marriage from a scien- 
tific standpoint. 

An ideal course for every girl somewhere before her 
education can be considered complete would cover 
"woman's life" as (1) industrial worker, (2) wife, (3) 
mother, (4) citizen, (5) civic force. 

Here, without undue "dangling of the wedding ring," 
girls might study marriage as an important phase of 
woman's life. Such a course, simplified or elaborated 
to suit the circumstances of the girls who participate, 
might well be given in all girls' schools and colleges, in 
continuation schools, in settlement-house clubs and classes, 
in rural clubs and neighborhood centers. For, reduced 
to its simplest terms, marriage in the tenement rests 
upon the same principles as marriage in the mansion. 

Happily married, or happy unmarried, with her life 
work stretching before her, the girl enters upon her 



240 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

heritage of work. We have trained her to be a home- 
maker, but we need feel no regret in regard to her training 
if she finds her life work in an office or a schoolroom or a 
hospital. She may never "keep house," although we 
hope that she will some time help to make a home. But, 
whether she becomes a homemaker or not, a true under- 
standing and appreciation of the value of the home and a 
knowledge of the principles underlying its maintenance 
will make her a broader woman and a better worker than 
she could otherwise be. In the home, or wherever she 
may be, she cannot fail to show the girls who are growing 
up about her what home means to her and what it means 
to the race. And in her hands we may safely leave the 
future of the home. 



SUGGESTED READINGS 

GENERAL BOOKS WHICH INTRODUCE THE READER TO THE 
LARGER PHASES OF THE WOMAN MOVEMENT 

Bruere, Martha B. and Robert W. Increasing Home Efficiency. 

New York: Macmillan. 
Colquhoun, Mrs. A. The Vocations of Woman. New York: 

Macmillan. 
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Women and Economics. Boston: 

Small, Maynard & Co. 
Key, Ellen. Love and Marriage. New York: Putnam. 
Schreiner, Olive. Woman and Labor. New York: Frederick A. 

Stokes Co. 
Spencer, Anna Garlin. The Challenge of Womanhood. 
Tarbell, Ida M. The Business of Being a Woman. New York: 

Macmillan. 

Some of these books are conservative, others very radical. 

They are recommended, not because the writer agrees with them, 

but because every mother and teacher who acts as a vocational 

counselor should know both conservative and radical points of view. 

'MORE DISTINCTLY VOCATIONAL BOOKS 

Bloomfield, Meyer. Readings in Vocational Guidance. Boston: 
Ginn & Co. 

The following articles in this book are especially recom- 
mended : 
"The Value, during Education, of the Life-Career Motive." 

By Charles W. Eliot. 
"Selecting Young Men for Particular Jobs." By Herman 

Schneider. 
"The Permanence of Interests and Their Relation to Abilities." 

By Edward L. Thorndike. 
"Survey of Occupations Open to the Girl of Fourteen to Sixteen 

Years of Age." By Harriet Hazen Dodge. 
Brewer, J. M. Vocational-Guidance Movement. New York: 

Macmillan. 
Brewster, Edwin T. Vocational Guidance for the Professions. 
Chicago: Rand McNally & Co. 

241 



242 Vocational Guidance for Girls 

Bureau of Education, Washington, D.C. 

Bulletin 1Q13, No. 17. "A Trade School for Girls." 
Bulletin 1914, No. 4. "The School and a Start in Life." 
Bulletin 1914, No. 14. "Vocational Guidance Association." 

Papers presented at the organization meeting, October, 1913. 
Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Education: 

191 1, chapter viii, "A School for Homemakers." 

19 1 4, chapter xiii, "Education for the Home." 

1915, chapter xii, "Home Economics." 

191 5, chapter xiv, "Home Education." 

1916, chapter xvii, "Education in the Home." 

Butler, Elizabeth Beardsley. Women and the Trades. New 

York: Charities Publication Committee. 
. Saleswomen in Mercantile Stores. New York: Survey 

Associates. 
Davis, Jesse Buttrick. Vocational and Moral Guidance. Boston: 

Ginn & Co. 
Department of Commerce and Labor, Washington, D.C: 

Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor. 
Contains nineteen volumes on "Condition of Women and 

Child Wage-Earners in the United States." The most compre- 
hensive study of conditions of women in industry before the war. 

Bulletin No. 175. "Summary of the Report on the Condition 
of Women and Child Wage-Earners in the United States." 
Gives in condensed form the findings in the nineteen volumes. 
Gowin and Wheatley. Occupations. Boston : Ginn & Co. 
Hollingworth, H. L. Vocational Psychology: Its Problems and 

Methods. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 
LaSelle and Wiley. Vocations for Girls. Boston: Houghton 

Mifflin Co. 
Leake, Albert H. The Vocational Education of Girls and Women. 

New York: Macmillan. 
McKeever, A. Training the Girl. New York: Macmillan. 
Pressey, C. Park. A Vocational Reader. Chicago: Rand 

McNally & Co. 

This book shows the teacher the kind of stories that can be 

used for inspiration for grade-school girls. 
Puffer, J. Adams. Vocational Guidance. Chicago: Rand 

McNally & Co. 
Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston: 

Vocations for the Trained Woman. 

The Public Schools and Women in Office Service. 



THE INDEX 



Acting as a preparation for 

homemaking, 201 
Adolescent girl, 130-150. See 

also Girl 
Agriculture, possibilities in and 

qualifications for, 1 73 ff. 
Arithmetic applied to household 

problems, ii4ff. 
Art courses as education for 

homemaking, 40, 1 1 8 f . 
Artist, work of, as a preparation 

for homemaking, 201 
Arts and crafts, possibilities in 

and qualifications for, 173 
Auburn, Washington, Central 

School, manual arts courses 

in, 119 

Bibliography, 241 f. 

Bruere, Martha B., quoted, 18, 

51 f- 

Budgets, 50 ff . 
Building problems, 32 ff. 

Census, statistics regarding 
women in industry, 151, 

152, 153, 154 
Chapin, Dr., quoted, 50 f. 
Child: 

imitative instinct as influen- 
cing training of, 90, 102 

training for habits of indus- 
try, 96 ff. 

training for self-control, 93 ff. 

training for sympathy, 90 f . 

training for unselfishness, 95 f . 

training the little, 86-101 
Church: 

as a means of betterment in 
the community, 67 

girl influenced by, 84 f . 

homemaking as influenced by, 
84 f. 

women and the, 67 



Citizenship, woman and, 71 f. 
Clothing {see also Dress) : 
problems of, in the home, 

57 ff- 
problems of, for the adolescent 
girl, 139 ff-, 147 f. 
Community: 

church as a means of better- 
ment in, 67 
home, relation between, and, 

62 ff. 
working women, relation to, 

157 ff- 
Consolidated school, no 
Continuation schools, 179 f. 
Cooking classes in grammar 

schools, nof. 

Decoration of the home, 40 
Department stores: 

continuation schools in, 1 79 f . 
statistics concerning women 
employed in, 180 
Dietetics, knowledge of, neces- 
sary to the homemaker, 

54 «• 

Divorce, dangers of, 82, 218, 220 
Doll's house as a means of 
teaching the child mechan- 
ics of housekeeping, 102- 
121 
Domestic work: 

as a preparation for home- 
making, 196 f. 
as a vocation, possibilities in 
and qualifications for, 185 f. 
Dress {see also Clothing): 

principles of selection, for the 

adolescent girl, 139 ff. 
problems of, for the adolescent 
girl, 139 ff-, 147 f.. 
Dressmaking, possibilities in and 
qualifications for, 171 f. 



243 



244 



The Index 



Education : 

for homemaking, 25 f. 
of women, effect on home life, 
8fL 
Educational agencies involved 
in "woman making," 75- 

8 5 
Eugenics as influencing mar- 
riage, 230 

Factory work: 

as a preparation for home- 
making, 200 f . 
possibilities in and qualifica- 
tions for, 1 70 f . 
Father, characteristics of the 

ideal, 23 f. 
Feeding problems in the home, 

53.ff- 

Financial knowledge necessary 

for homemaking, 49 ff. 
Food production, possibilities 

in and qualifications for 

work in, 175 ff. 
Food questions, study of, in 

schools, 118 
Frederick, Mrs., quoted, 18 
Furniture, principles governing 

selection of, 42 

Games, training afforded by, 

123 ff. 
Geography applied to household 

problems, 116 
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 

quoted, 56 
Girl: 

adolescent, 130-150 
church's influence upon, 84 ff. 
dress problems of the adoles- 
cent, 139 ff., 147 f. # 
educational agencies involved 

in training the, 75-85 
health of adolescent, methods 

of safeguarding, 130 ff. 
inner life of, 122-129 
plan for training adolescent, 

136 ff. 
school center of society of, 

129 ff., 143 ff- 



teaching the mechanics of 
housekeeping to, 102-12 1 

work of, 1 5 1-2 1 7 
Grammar school, part played in 
vocational guidance, 204 ff . 



Hall, G. Stanley, quoted, 76 
Handwork, classification of, 

170 ff. 
Health of adolescent girl, 
methods of safeguarding, 
130 ff. 
Heating apparatus, 35 f. 
High school, part played in 
vocational guidance, 2 1 1 ff. 
Home: 

as a means of training for 

homemaking, 81 ff. 
building problems in, 32 ff . 
clothing problems in, 57 ff. 
community, relation to. 62 ff. 
decoration of, 40 
establishing a, 27-48 
feeding problems in, 53 ff. 
furniture, principles govern- 
ing selection of, 42 
heating problems in, 35 f. 
income in, apportionment of, 

50 ff, 
industrial revolution, effect 

of, on, 7 ff. 
industries in, 12 ff. 
labor-saving devices in, 44 ff. 
running the domestic machin- 
ery, 49-72 ^ 
servant question in, 44 ff. 
site for, selection of, 31 f. 
the ideal, 18-26 
urban conditions as affecting, 

10 f. 
waste disposal in, 37 ff. 
water supply in, 36 f. 
women, effect of education of, 
on, 8 ff. 
Homemaking : 

community problems in coun- 
try and city affecting, 28, 30 
dietetics, knowledge of, neces- 
sary to, 54 ff . 
education for, 25 f. 



The Index 



245 



educational agencies involved 

in training for, 75-85 
financial knowledge necessary 

for, 49 ff. 
home's influence in training 

for, 81 ff. 
tasks suitable for the small 

child, 109 
teacher's responsibility in 

training for, 78, 80 f. 
the real business of woman, 

14 ff. 
vocations as affecting, 194- 

202 (see also the specific 

vocations) 
Home work, school credit for, 

105 ff-. 
Housekeeping : 

tasks suitable for the small 

child, 109 
teaching the mechanics of, 
102-121 
Hygiene, study of, as a prepara- 
tion for homemaking, 120 

Income, apportionment of, 50 ff. 
Industrial revolution, effects of, 

on home life, 7 ff. 
Industries (see also Vocations): 
in the home, 12 ff. 
women in, Census statistics 
concerning, 151, 152, 153, 

154 , 
women's wage statistics, 160 

Industry, teaching the child 

habits of, 96 ff. 
Imitation, evils of, 59 f . 
Imitative instinct, influence of, 

in training the child, 90, 102 

Labor-saving devices in the 

home, 44 ff. 
Leominster, Massachusetts, a 

school lunch room, 1 1 1 
Library work, possibilities in 

and qualifications for, 189 f. 
Literary work as a preparation 

for homemaking, 201 

Marriage, 218-240 

age of, for women, 152, 219 f. 



factors influencing, 226 f. 
ideals of, 226 f. 
Massachusetts plan of school 
credit for home work, 106 
Millinery, possibilities in and 

qualifications for, 172 
Montclair, New Jersey, school 

lunchroom, in 
Montessori materials as means 
of teaching habits of indus- 
try, 98 
Mother (see also Woman): 
characteristics of the ideal, 

21 ff. _ 
community institutions, rela- 
tion to, 65 ff. 
school, duty to, 65 ff. 

Nearing, Scott, quoted, 18 
Newark, New Jersey, Central 

High School, lunch room in, 

in 
New York City, Public School 

No. 7, model school home, 

* T 3 

Nursing: 

as a preparation for home- 
making, 197 ff. 

; Dssibilities in and qualifica- 
tions for, 190 f. 

Occupations. See Vocations; 
see also the specific occupa- 
tions 

Office work: 

as a preparation for home- 
making, 199 
possibilities in and qualifi- 
cations for, 180 ff. 

Oppenheim, quoted, 120 

Oregon plan of school credit 
for home work, 106 

Physiology, study of, as prepara- 
tion for homemaking, 120 
Puffer, J.Adams, quoted, 152,155 

Reading for the adolescent girl, 

146 f. 
Reform, woman's opportunities 

in, 68, 70 f. 



246 



The Index 



Salesmanship : 

as a preparation for home- 
making, 200 
possibilities in and qualifica- 
tions for, 178 ff. 
School : 

art courses contributing to 
homemaking knowledge, 
118 f. 
consolidated, no 
continuation, 1 79 f . 
cooking classes in, no f. 
homemaking, duty to edu- 
cate for, 35, 47 f., 76 ff. 
mothers' relation to, 65 ff. 
sewing classes in grammar, 

no, in f. 
vocational guidance, responsi- 
bility in, 1 67 ff . , 204 ff . , 2 1 1 ff . 
School credit for home work, 

105 ff. 
School gardens, 108 
Schreiner, Olive, quoted, 152 
Servant question, 4.4 ff . 
Sewing classes in grammar 

schools, no, in f. 
Sex knowledge, instruction in, 

80, 128, 148 ff. 
Social work,- possibilities in ^nd 

qualifications for, 191 ff. 
Society: 

school and playground center 

of girls', 126 ff., 143 ff. 
woman's place in, 3-17 
Suffrage, 71 

Tarbell, Ida M., quoted, 15 
Teacher: 

as a vocational guide, 167 ff., 

204 ff., 211 ff. 
homemaking, responsibility of, 
in training for, 75 ff ., 78, 80 f. 
Teaching : 

as a preparation for home- 
making, 197 ff. 
possibilities in and qualifica- 
tions for, 188 f. 

Urban conditions as affecting 
home life, 10 f. 



Vocational guidance: 

considerations in, 163 ff., 

194 ff. 
grammar school's part in, 

204 ff . 
high school's part in, 211 ff. 
need for, 161 f. 
object of, 216 
school's part in, 167 ff., 204 ff., 

211 ff. 
teacher's part in, 167 ff., 

204 ff., 211 ff. 
Vocations (see also the specific 

vocations) : 
as affecting homemaking, 194- 

202 
choice of, considerations in, 

163 ff., 194 ff- 
classification of, 163-193 
determined by training, 203- 

217 
distributing group, 178-183 
producing group, 169-177 
service group, 184-193 



Wage statistics, 160 
Ward, Lester F., quoted, 15 
Waste disposal, 37 ff. 
Water supply, 36 f. 
Womanhood, present-day ideals 

of, 1-72 
Woman (see also Mother): 

and citizenship, 71 f. 

as buyer, 70 f . 

church, relation to, 67 

community's relation to work- 
ing, 157 ff- 

education of, effect on home 
life, 8ff. 

in industry, Census statistics, 

151, 152, 153, 154 
marriage age 152, 219 f. 
reform, opportunities in, 68, 

70 f. 
society, place in, 3-17 
status of, views concerning, 

the real business of, 14 ff. 
wage statistics, 160 



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